NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

1
The New York attorney general's investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday.

The office found that Cuomo harassed current and former state employees, as well as a number of women outside of state government, James said, as the office released a lengthy report on the investigation.

James said Tuesday that her investigation found that Cuomo engaged in "unwelcome and nonconsensual touching," and made comments of a "suggestive" sexual nature. James said that the conduct created a "hostile work environment for women."

Cuomo's conduct violated multiple federal and state laws, James said.

Cuomo's behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other state employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail, as well as members of the public, the attorney general's report states.

"We also conclude that the Executive Chamber's culture -- one filled with fear and intimidation, while at the same time normalizing the Governor's frequent flirtations and gender-based comments -- contributed to the conditions that allowed the sexual harassment to occur and persist," investigators Joon Kim and Anne Clark wrote in the report. "That culture also influenced the improper and inadequate ways in which the Executive Chamber has responded to allegations of harassment."

The report details the allegations of 11 women claiming harassment. Investigators found all 11 women to be credible, Clark said, adding that their accounts had been corroborated to varying degrees. One accuser, Charlotte Bennett, told people and texted with people in real time about her interactions with the governor, according to Clark. One of the touching incidents alleged by the trooper was witnessed by another state trooper, who confirmed it to investigators, Clark said.

"I believe women. And I believe these 11 women," James said

The report states Cuomo made specific denials of conduct that complainants recalled clearly, but investigators said "we found his denials to lack credibility and to be inconsistent with the weight of evidence obtained during our investigation." Investigators spoke to 179 individuals, and reviewed 74,000 pieces of evidence, James said. That evidence painted a "deeply disturbing yet clear picture," she added.

The investigators repeatedly described Cuomo's conduct as "unlawful." A footnote in the report, however, said that the report was not reaching a conclusion as to "whether the conduct amounts to or should be the subject of criminal prosecution."

Cuomo's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The investigation into the sexual harassment claims is one of several that the state attorney general's office has launched into Cuomo and his inner circle, as a political firestorm has raged around the governor in recent months. The controversies that have swirled around Cuomo are a far cry from the acclaim he received at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

In January, James unveiled a report of her review of how his administration handled nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 outbreak, which found that his administration undercounted by about 50 percent the deaths of nursing home residents. Additionally, James is investigating whether Cuomo used official resources for the writing and roll out of his book, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic."

Cuomo has denied allegations of touching anyone inappropriately but released a statement in February acknowledging that some of his workplace remarks ""may have been insensitive or too personal." The statement said he was "truly sorry" to those who might have "misinterpreted (the remarks) as an unwanted flirtation."

The backlash has included New York's Democratic legislature, where lawmakers have revoked some of Cuomo's temporary emergency powers and have launched an impeachment probe.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/03/politics ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

4
Whether he's guilty is a side issue, the optics don't look good for him or the NY Democratic Party.

It's certain his successor will be a Democrat and there is a Dem Lt Gov Kathy Hochul. Letitia James herself could run, there is a long history of state AG's winning governorships, but that would make her investigation of Cuomo look politically motivated and cast doubt on it's authenticity.

Politico came up with a list in March when Cuomo was declared politically dead.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/0 ... tes-473916

Chris Cuomo has gotten beaten up in the right wing press for advising his brother Andrew, he has a right to advise anyone he wants. CNN where Chris works banned him from covering any stories on his brother which is appropriate.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

8
It sux that Dems have to impeach their own leaders for bad behaviors and failures of social standards while Repugs just circle the wagon until the press goes away. Such is the burden of integrity I guess.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

9
Unfortunately, the way the dynamics work, resignation doesn't just imply guilt, but acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Reputational suicide. There is no honor there.

Even declaring that he is innocent but recognizes that "the distraction" would detract from his ability to do the job, and that he won't run for re-election, is simultaneously insufficient for the purists and critics while inadequate as a defense.

A finding by the AG - especially an AG who could run for his office - is not a trial or conviction. The way our system works, the only way to maintain the semblance of dignity when accused of any sex-related offense is to declare the claims false and fight to the bitter end. There is more "honor" in fighting to uphold one's reputation and defend one's career than in accepting past mistakes and taking responsibility for them. He has no choice. He will fight, and tear down the rest of the state leadership with him if possible.

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

10
wings wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:49 pm Unfortunately, the way the dynamics work, resignation doesn't just imply guilt, but acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Reputational suicide. There is no honor there.

Even declaring that he is innocent but recognizes that "the distraction" would detract from his ability to do the job, and that he won't run for re-election, is simultaneously insufficient for the purists and critics while inadequate as a defense.

A finding by the AG - especially an AG who could run for his office - is not a trial or conviction. The way our system works, the only way to maintain the semblance of dignity when accused of any sex-related offense is to declare the claims false and fight to the bitter end. There is more "honor" in fighting to uphold one's reputation and defend one's career than in accepting past mistakes and taking responsibility for them. He has no choice. He will fight, and tear down the rest of the state leadership with him if possible.
Well said wings.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

11
Nicholas Goldberg, at the LA Times.
I haven’t seen Andrew Cuomo for 26 years, but he doesn’t appear to have changed much.

A bully. A pugilist. A person who believes that power is there to be grabbed and wielded, often at the expense of others. I’d be lying if I claimed to know him well, but in my dealings with him I always found him — as so many people have before and since — arrogant and brash, with a challenging, teasing, aggressive, competitive, sometimes belittling style.

Now the governor of New York, at 63, is trying to salvage his career. On Tuesday, he was accused by the state attorney general, after a five-month-long investigation, of sexually harassing a number of women who worked for him, retaliating against at least one when she spoke out and creating a toxic work environment that employees described as “bullying,” “vindictive” and “creepy.” The investigators said they found credible evidence that he had kissed and groped employees and that he made inappropriate comments.

The governor issued an 85-page denial, but many Democrats — including President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — called for his resignation.

When I knew him in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was his father, Mario Cuomo, who was the governor, and I was a reporter covering the administration.

Andrew (which is what everybody called him) was the cocky, chain-smoking crown prince who had run his father’s first campaign at age 24 and still had a special phone line directly into the governor’s office. He was often described as “Mario without the charm,” which was funny because Mario was both enormously charming, and at the same time, a bully in his own right. Andrew learned lots — down to the timbre of his voice and the inflection of his words — from his father.

I met him in 1988, when he was working for a New York law firm, planning his next career steps. Andrew once spent half an hour trying to talk me out of writing a story he wasn’t eager to see in the paper — he cajoled and pushed and he browbeat, but he wasn’t abusive or threatening.

I also remember an hour or so we spent together just after midnight at his father’s campaign office a few days before the 1994 election. Mario was losing, but I found Andrew a lot more relaxed and tolerable at that late hour of the day than I ever had before. I can’t remember what we were drinking but I know the conversation was off the record.

I know nothing about Andrew’s sex life. But of all the revelations in recent months, the story that really struck a chord was published in New York magazine by a reporter who had covered him as governor. She explained that he had often touched her on her arms, shoulders, back and waist without her consent, but that she never believed he wanted to have sex with her.

“He wanted me to know that I was powerless, that I was small and weak, that I did not deserve what relative power I had: a platform to hold him accountable for his words and actions,” she wrote. “He wanted me to know that he could take my dignity away at any moment with an inappropriate comment or a hand on my waist.”

Whatever else he did to other women, this description of him using physical dominance as a form of power and threat — that has the ring of truth.

At the outset of the #MeToo allegations, he was under no obligation — moral, legal or otherwise — to resign just because he’d been accused. And of course he has the right to defend himself now.

But the conclusions of the New York attorney general are damning — and not surprising. Most sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations are not invented, and people understand that. Common sense tells us that accusers generally have little reason to lie — and that the accused have more reason to do so. In this case, accusations against the governor have been made by 11 women, nine of them current or former state employees.

The New York Assembly is currently conducting an impeachment inquiry. Other investigations are underway by the Albany County district attorney and the FBI.

Cuomo, for his part, repeated Tuesday that he had not touched anyone inappropriately and that the attorney general’s investigation was biased. “This is not who I am,” he said.

The fact is, Cuomo is being judged not in a courtroom but in the political arena, which does not have the same rules, and in many senses doesn’t have any rules at all. On the one hand, behavior that was tolerated in the past is no longer easily forgiven; on the other hand, maybe he can brazen it out.

But the attorney general’s 165-page report seems thorough. The investigators searched for corroboration of the allegations and looked for holes in the accusers’ stories. In the end, they described a workplace environment of fear and intimidation, where protecting the governor from those he harassed was the goal, rather than protecting those who had been harassed.

At the time I knew him, the story he was putting out was that he wanted to get away from government, that he didn’t want to run for office. Politics had too many negatives, he said.

“If you’re in office you have to pay the price,” he said in one interview.

If he forgot that piece of wisdom in the years that followed, he's remembering it now.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2 ... ?_amp=true

Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and Op-Ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He previously served 11 years as editor of the editorial page and was also a former editor of the Op-Ed page and the Sunday Opinion section. While at New York Newsday in the 1980s and 1990s, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent and political reporter. His writing has been published in the New Republic, New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Nation, Sunday Times of London and Washington Monthly, among other places. He is a graduate of Harvard University.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

14
I read that impeachment works a little differently in NYS. It isn't just the Senate that tries him, it's also the highest court. Which isn't the NY Supreme Court, ironically.

Also read that a majority of the Dems in the legislature supported impeachment, so this really becomes a question of "what will the Republicans do?" Would they rather hold a Dem accountable for the same conduct they'll let their own people get away with, or do they play a longer game and support him in order to watch the Dems commit to a circular firing squad? If Cuomo declared that he was leaving the Dems and running as an independent next time, it would open up some interesting 3-way party dynamics and the GOP could finally win the governor's mansion.

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

15
wings wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:49 pm Unfortunately, the way the dynamics work, resignation doesn't just imply guilt, but acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Reputational suicide. There is no honor there.

Even declaring that he is innocent but recognizes that "the distraction" would detract from his ability to do the job, and that he won't run for re-election, is simultaneously insufficient for the purists and critics while inadequate as a defense.

A finding by the AG - especially an AG who could run for his office - is not a trial or conviction. The way our system works, the only way to maintain the semblance of dignity when accused of any sex-related offense is to declare the claims false and fight to the bitter end. There is more "honor" in fighting to uphold one's reputation and defend one's career than in accepting past mistakes and taking responsibility for them. He has no choice. He will fight, and tear down the rest of the state leadership with him if possible.
Couldn't have stated it better.

He knows if he admits to it he's gonna get his ass sued off. And there's always the possibility that some of those women are republicans out for blood. It's a she said he said thing. No corroborating evidence like witnesses to the alleged crimes is there? I mean I don't doubt Mr. Lonely did it but damn, why don't these idiots just get a prostitute.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

16
tonguengroover wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:11 pm
He knows if he admits to it he's gonna get his ass sued off. And there's always the possibility that some of those women are republicans out for blood. It's a she said he said thing. No corroborating evidence like witnesses to the alleged crimes is there? I mean I don't doubt Mr. Lonely did it but damn, why don't these idiots just get a prostitute.
i seem to recall that didn't work out too well for Gov. Spitzer. Still gives me the shudders. Socks?

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

18
tonguengroover wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:20 am I don't think there's anything wrong with women or men selling themselves if that's what they want. Prostitution should be legalized everywhere just like in Nevada. The oldest profession ever will not be stopped by laws.

Besides, what else is a horny dude supposed to do?. Jack off to porn?

Yes that is reality, women and men have sold themselves and not always through prostitution. Sometimes it's been for job or career advancement. In Nevada it's left to individual counties, but it's not legal in Clark County, Las Vegas or Washoe County, Reno the two largest counties in NV. New Zealand is one country where female and male prostitution is legal.
https://prostitution.procon.org/countri ... -policies/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: NY AG finds that NY Gov Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women

19
Wtf? This story has exactly WHAT to do with prostitution? -Zip. Accusations of the Governor was for abuse of power and general sleaziness. Sexual innuendos were used as a psychological weapon for domination at the workplace, quite different than a healthy expression of sexual appetites.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Amazon [Bot], Bing [Bot], Google [Bot] and 3 guests