Pressure on Cuomo to resign intensifies
Lawyers for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo remained defiant in the face of intensifying pressure on the governor to resign, even as the three-term Democrat confronts possible criminal investigations in four New York counties and potential impeachment proceedings.
“I know the difference between putting together a case against a target versus doing independent fact-finding with an open mind,” Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, said Friday at a virtual news conference hours after a former employee who accused him of groping her in the Executive Mansion in Albany filed a criminal complaint.
The woman is one of 11 who told New York Attorney General Letitia James that Cuomo sexually harassed them and created a “climate of fear” in his offices.
James report, released on Tuesday, said Cuomo, 63, groped the former staffer and gave unwanted kisses, hugs and touches to multiple women, including a trooper on his detail.
The defence laid out by Glavin and lawyer Paul Fishman on Friday was that James sprung her report on them without notice and that many of the allegations were either not true or described out of context.
Cuomo has denied the allegations and remains hunkered down in the Governor’s Mansion. The press briefing was the clearest indication yet that despite calls for his resignation from the White House, the state Democratic party and the Assembly, he wasn’t ready to step down.
“This investigation was conducted in a manner to support a predetermined narrative,” said Glavin, who accused the investigators as acting as “prosecutors, judge and jury.”
Glavin disputed claims by a number of accusers, including the former staffer who went to police with a claim that Cuomo had groped her,
Earlier Friday, the Albany County sheriff’s office confirmed it had received a complaint.
According to James’s report, Cuomo reached under the staffer’s blouse and grabbed her breast while at the Executive Mansion. Cuomo’s office didn’t respond but a spokesman said it had informed the police of the groping accusation in March.
Glavin said the governor “was stunned” by the claim and denied it happened, saying he lived his life “under a microscope.”
Glavin questioned whether the attorney general interviewed other staffers who were there at the time. Glavin said a timeline reconstructed by Cuomo’s lawyers disproves the accuser’s narrative and cited emails from the staffer commenting about how she was enjoying eating cheese and crackers at the Executive Mansion.
“She was joking while she was there. She was eating snacks and even offered to stay longer when the work was done,” Glavin said.