Cuomo deserves due process. He should quit trying to interfere with it.
Given the volume of allegations against Cuomo involving sexual harassment, and separate questions about whether his administration attempted to conceal the number of covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes, whatever investigators turn up is not likely to be flattering. But the fact that a fact-finding inquiry is underway over the harassment claims itself breaks new ground.
Comprehensive investigations, beyond what has been reported by the media, did not happen with the allegations against former president Donald Trump. Since 2016, Trump has been credibly accused of sexual assault by two dozen women. There have been no consequences. He denied it all, and his supporters shrugged everything off.
The opposite happened in 2017 with then-Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). After several women claimed he had groped them, Franken asked for an ethics investigation and promised to cooperate. Instead, he was railroaded out of the Senate by his Democratic colleagues.
“This decision is not about me. It’s about the people of Minnesota,” Franken said in his resignation speech. “And it’s become clear that I can’t both pursue the Ethics Committee process and, at the same time, remain an effective senator for them.”
A similar clamor seems to be building around Cuomo, with both of New York’s U.S. senators, nearly all the Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation and a growing number of other Empire State officials calling on him to resign. As with Franken, the argument is that he can no longer effectively perform the duties of his office.
Cuomo’s best protection at the moment is the fact that an independent investigation is underway, overseen by New York Attorney General Letitia James and conducted by two lawyers that she chose. Separately, he is facing federal and state inquiries into what may have been efforts to cover up the number of covid-19 deaths that occurred in New York nursing homes.
Whether all of this amounts to grounds for removing him from office remains to be seen.
The governor, who only months ago was lionized as a Democratic hero, keeps professing confidence that he will be vindicated. Appropriating language usually heard from the right, he has styled himself a victim of “cancel culture,” and says that those calling for him to step down are acting out of “political expediency” and “without knowing any facts and substance.”
But the actions of both the governor and his closest allies suggest they know that the harassment investigation is likely to make things worse for him. More troubling, it appears that they themselves are undercutting the due process that is supposed to provide both justice and accountability. Consider:
Damaging information from the personnel files of one of Cuomo’s accusers, former staffer Lindsey Boylan, has been provided to reporters, prompting her to accuse the governor’s office of a smear campaign.
And, according to the Wall Street Journal, Cuomo aides, reportedly acting at the behest of secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa, called at least a half-dozen former employees to gather information about Boylan — and to ask whether they had been contacted by her.
Ana Liss, one of those called, told the Journal: “I felt intimidated, and I felt bewildered” by the outreach from the governor’s office on Dec. 21. That was eight days after Boylan tweeted her initial accusation that Cuomo sexually harassed her.
Liss, who had worked as a policy aide to Cuomo, has since accused the governor of behaving improperly toward her.
Now, my colleagues at The Post have reported what appears to be an even more serious breach. New York’s “vaccine czar” — longtime Cuomo adviser Larry Schwartz — has been phoning county officials the past two weeks in efforts to gauge their loyalty to the governor.
The implicit message that some officials took away from the calls was that their covid-19 vaccine supplies could suffer if they are insufficiently steadfast to Cuomo. One of them filed notice that he plans to lodge an ethics complaint with the state attorney general’s public integrity unit.
President Biden had it right when he said Sunday: “The investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us.” That requires some — though not unlimited — patience.
But if Cuomo and his allies really have faith that the investigation will exonerate him, they can show it by backing off and letting the process work.
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