Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor, has accused Attorney General Letitia James of unethical behavior.
Cuomo claims in the 48-page complaint that James lied to the public and manipulated the investigation into the sexual assault charges against him for her own personal political advantage. Although the investigation found that majority of the 11 complaints did not comprise sexual assault, he said that James’ report continually hinted that he was guilty. His criticism includes the actions of Joon Kim and Anne Clark, two of the attorney general’s personal assistants.
Andrew Cuomo files ethics complaint against NY AG Letitia James over sexual harassment probe https://t.co/XN8zcZrytx
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The filing reads in part, “On August 3, 2021, the Attorney General and her investigators issued a purposefully inaccurate and misleading Report… bombastically and repeatedly implying that I sexually harassed eleven women, despite the fact that the allegations made by the majority of the eleven women did not constitute sexual harassment under state or federal law, even assuming arguendo that they were true.” This misleading story was bolstered by the headline of a press release produced by the Attorney General’s office and posted to her website on August 6, 2021: ‘Statement from the Attorney General’s Office in Response to Attacks on 11 Women Harassed by Governor Cuomo.‘
He went on to say that the Attorney General’s press briefing on August 3, 2021, in which the Report was released, was designed to be biased and incendiary in order to villainize him in the eyes of the public and to mislead the public and the press into believing that he had sexually assaulted eleven women, which was simply not true. Nonetheless, this was the narrative reported by the press, and the Attorney General never corrected or rebutted this.
According to the New York Times, the grievance panel in the state court system has the authority to either dismiss the complaint or conduct an investigation leading to disciplinary action, up to and including disbarment.
Defying the narrative established by Cuomo, James, Kim, and Clark all refute the claims.
“Mr. Cuomo resigned after an independent investigation revealed that he preyed on multiple women who worked for him. New Yorkers are ready to move forward and close this sordid chapter in our state’s history,” a spokesperson for James’s office informed Axios. Moreover, she said, James and the two “hold themselves to the highest ethical standards.”
The New York Times reports that the former governor stepped down in disgrace in August of last year after a spate of allegations of sexual assault caused most of his supporters to abandon him. Even President Joe Biden reportedly asked the governor to step down. Just one week following James’s report, he announced his resignation. Cuomo says he’s sorry if he made any woman feel uneasy, but he denies doing anything sexual.
An August 16 court victory, in which the court rejected the proposal by the attorney general for Cuomo to return the $5.1 million he earned from his memoir publishing deal for American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic, seems to have bolstered Cuomo’s efforts to rehabilitate his image, which have intensified in the past month. An investigation revealed that the ex-governor had spent $60,000 on Facebook advertising in the preceding month to promote the narrative that his resignation was the result of “#MeToo excess,” as reportedi by Politico.