No impeachment probe for Cuomo
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York State Assembly will suspend its investigation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo once he steps down after its leader concluded the Legislature didn’t have the clear authority to impeach a departed official, the chamber’s top Democrat said Friday.
Cuomo announced Tuesday he planned to resign over sexual harassment allegations as it became clear he was almost certain to be impeached by the Legislature. He said his resignation was effective in 14 days, at which point he’ll be replaced by Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Some lawmakers have urged the Assembly to press on with an impeachment proceeding, perhaps to bar Cuomo from holding state office in the future if he attempted a political comeback.
But Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said Friday that lawyers had advised the body’s judiciary committee that the state constitution doesn’t authorize the Legislature to impeach an elected official no longer in office.
Heastie had provided reporters a less definitive legal memorandum saying Assembly lawyers and outside counsel had concluded lawmakers “probably” lack the constitutional authority to do so, though the matter hasn’t been settled definitely.
“Let me be clear — the committee’s work over the last several months, although not complete, did uncover credible evidence in relation to allegations that have been made in reference to the governor,” said Heastie, a New York City
Democrat.
He said that included evidence related to the sexual harassment claims, possible misuse of state resources in conjunction with publication of the governor’s book on the pandemic, and “improper and misleading disclosure of nursing home data.”
“This evidence — we believe — could likely have resulted in articles of impeachment had he not resigned,” Heastie said.
When asked whether lawmakers could still release a report with findings to the public as originally planned, Heastie said: “I guess it could.”
“The concern behind that is, if you’re in the middle of an investigation and other law enforcement areas are looking at this, I don’t know if we can, I don’t want to have us step on their toes
while there are criminal investigations going on,” he said Friday on the news program “Capital Tonight.”
Heastie didn’t explain how releasing a committee report could interfere with independent law enforcement investigations. He has previously said that he’s asked the committee to turn over evidence it had gathered “to the relevant investigatory authorities.”
Heastie denied that he had reached any deal with Cuomo to let him resign without facing an impeachment trial or investigation.
“There was no deal,” Heastie said. “I’ve said that 150 times and I’ll make that the 151st time.”
Cuomo’s office and his lawyer, Rita Glavin, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The first woman to publicly accuse Cuomo of misconduct, Lindsey Boylan, called the Assembly leadership’s decision to call off its separate investigation “an unjust cop out.”
“The public deserves to know the extent of the Governor’s misdeeds and possible crimes. His victims deserve justice and to know he will not be able harm others,” she tweeted.
Many local Republican members of the state Legislature provided comments on the decision not to proceed with the impeachment.
“The actions of the leadership of the Assembly can only be described as a miscarriage of justice for the toxic environment he created and the 15,000 New Yorkers who died in nursing homes from COVID-19 that he tried to cover-up so he could make $5.1 million from a book deal,” State Sen. Jim Tedisco, R-C-Glenville, said. “The tragedy is he can deny and deny and say goodbye by resigning from office in the manner of his choosing without ever being impeached and held accountable for his actions which the Attorney General said amounted to breaking state and federal laws.”
“If the Majority in the Judiciary Committee had done its job months ago, Cuomo would have already been impeached and removed from office and my Senate colleagues would have been able to ban him from ever running or holding public office again in New York State.”
“I”m extremely disappointed that Speaker Heastie has decided to stop the impeachment process without consulting all members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, who were tasked with spearheading this investigation,” Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh, R-C-IBallston said. “As of this past Monday, we were scheduled to meet at least two more times ahead of August 25 and other members and I were prepared to spend hours reviewing the nearly 500,000 documents procured by our outside counsel, as well as the source documents from the attorney general’s report. The speaker’s decision today has foreclosed that opportunity — and for what reason?
“Gov. Cuomo’s resignation doesn’t absolve him of his many transgressions — which the Assembly Judiciary Committee has ‘credible’ evidence of — and he, just like any other New Yorker, should be held accountable for his actions,” Assemblyman Jake Ashby, R-Castleton, added.
“The suspension of the impeachment procedure is paramount to a slap in the face for victims of his repeated sexual harassment and the families who lost loved ones as a result of Gov. Cuomo’s financially-and-politically motivated orders that caused the deaths of thousands of seniors in nursing homes across our state.
“If the Assembly Democrats, blinded by political loyalty, stand by the decision to suspend the impeachment proceedings than it is of the utmost importance that the federal government use the information obtained by the Assembly Judiciary Committee and move swiftly with a federal investigation into the many laws the governor appears to have habitually broken.”
“I have taken my role as a member of this committee very seriously, and to learn that all of the work that we have been briefed on, and that which had yet to be done, would be moot by way of a Friday afternoon news dump is shameful. Transparency can be hard to find in Albany, but blindsiding members of the committee who have diligently worked on behalf of New Yorkers for the past 5 months to look into very serious allegations against our governor is a new low.
“It’s a sad commentary that even in his final days as Governor, Andrew Cuomo has been able to roll the Majority in the Legislature and make them his lapdog.”
Since March, outside lawyers have been helping the Assembly conduct a wide-ranging investigation on whether there were grounds to impeach Cuomo. The announcement that the inquiry would cease came on a day the Assembly had initially set as a deadline for Cuomo’s legal team to respond with any additional evidence refuting the allegations against him.
Cuomo faces ongoing probes from the state attorney general over his $5 million book deal and from federal prosecutors, who are scrutinizing his handling of nursing home deaths data. The state’s ethics commissioners, who could levy fines against Cuomo, are also looking into similar issues.
Heastie also cited “active investigations” by county district attorneys in Manhattan, Albany, Westchester, Nassau and Oswego concerning incidents of alleged sexual harassment by Cuomo. Several women have said the governor inappropriately touched them, including an aide who said he groped her breast.
Several committee members said Heastie’s announcement took them by surprise.
Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Lavine, a Democrat, said Heastie alone made the decision to suspend the impeachment investigation.
Committee members were split in their reaction with some like Assemblymember David Weprin, also a Democrat, saying an impeachment trial would have been a “tremendous waste of government resources.” Latrice Walker, a Democrat, told NY1 on Tuesday that lawmakers have more important work to do than focus on Cuomo’s “future career choices.”
But others objected to the end of the Legislature’s probe. Assemblymember Tom Abinanti, a Westchester Democrat on the committee, called the decision “premature.”
“The governor has not even left office,” he said. “The committee should continue to meet and issue a public report to the people on the extensive investigation that the committee and its attorneys have conducted to date.”
The Republican Minority Leader in the Assembly, Will Barclay, called it “a massive disservice to the goals of transparency and accountability.”
The Assembly’s probe has already cost taxpayers at least $1.2 million, according to Lavine.
All six Republicans and nine out of 15 Democrats on the committee said the Assembly should at least release a public report on the findings of the impeachment investigation.
Lavine said he will be consulting with committee members about whether to do so, and will decide once Cuomo resigns.
“That’s something I’m going to give full consideration to,” Lavine said. “I expect there will be a full report.”
Legal experts this week said they had questions over both the legality and practicality of trying to impeach Cuomo after he’d already left office.
Ross Garber, an attorney who’s represented four recent U.S. governors facing impeachment proceedings in their respective states, had told The Associated Press his reading of state law is that a person must be in office at the time of impeachment.
Richard Rifkin, an attorney who’s worked in state government for 40 years, including in the attorney general’s office and as special counsel to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, said the language in the state Constitution on impeachment was “really quite vague” and that there wasn’t definitive precedent saying whether impeachment could continue after Cuomo left office.