Andrew Cuomo.Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty
Cuomo resigned in August after mounting sexual misconduct allegations and other controversies, includinghow the state tracked virus deathsin nursing homes.
He insisted then that any personal misconduct was inadvertent but that he needed to step down as the scandal had become too much of a hindrance on the state.
Cuomo — who became something of a national political star during theCOVID-19pandemic, thanks to his charismatic daily press conferences — has continually denied the stories in James' 168-page report, which are drawn from hundreds of pages of transcripts from his accusers.
Days after the report was released, Cuomo said he would “step aside and let government get back to governing.”
Speaking to Bloomberg for his first extensiveinterview since leaving office, the former three-term governor remained cagey about his next steps — but insisted he was confident that his reputation remained intact enough that a future return to politics might not be out of the question.
Andrew Cuomo.Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
Cuomo’s confidence seemingly stems from the fact that, since he left office,prosecutors have recently declined to move forwardwith five cases against him related to the misconduct claims.
In most of the cases, authorities said the behavior the women described wasn’t prosecutable under the statutes.
In one instance, a prosecutor said the case would be difficult to prove in court.
Such moves, Cuomo’s spokesman has said, buttress his argument that the attorney general was undertaking a “political hit job.”
However, authorities stressed, their decisions were not reflections on Cuomo’s accusers.
In a statement in January, for example, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said that Cuomo would not be prosecutedon a misdemeanor sex crime chargerelated to a former aide’s claim thathe fondled her breast in the state Executive Mansion in 2020.
Soares said that while his office found Cuomo’s accuser “cooperative and credible” and her story “deeply troubling,” he ultimately didn’t feel the case was strong enough to proceed.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Cuomo suggested the lack of charges against him meant that the allegations themselves were “bogus” — because that’s what he hears from “people on the street.”
“It turns out in a remarkably short period of time that it did become all bogus. Eleven became zero,” he said, referring to the number of women who spoke against him. He added, “If you do an honest summary, which is what I get from people on the street, I have been vindicated.”
New York Attorney General James (who launched a campaign for governor before ending it to run for her current office again), he contended to Bloomberg, was “politically motivated.”
James disputes the idea that the allegations against him were somehow “bogus” or politically motivated.
Cuomo resigned, James said in a statement, because he didn’t want to face impeachment.
Andrew Cuomo.Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
“No one, including Andrew Cuomo, can dispute the fact that multiple investigations found allegations of sexual harassment against him to be credible,” James' office said in a statement issued to various media outlets, includedNew Yorkmagazine. “Only he is to blame for inappropriately touching his own staff and then quitting so he didn’t have to face impeachment. His baseless attacks won’t change the reality — Andrew Cuomo is a serial sexual harasser.”
“I never resigned because I said I did something wrong,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m resigning because I don’t want to be a distraction.’ "
Cuomo also still retains a team to handle press inquiries and issue statements rebutting James' work and touting decisions not to prosecute the stories he denies.
“I’m still focused on communicating what happened here. Because as a precedent, it has to be exposed,” he told Bloomberg. “Vindication is not the reason to run for office.”
RELATED VIDEO: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Addresses His Three Daughters in Resignation — ‘Your Dad Made Mistakes’
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The former governor also spoke out about others who have lost their jobs in the wake of his own scandal, including his brother, former CNN hostChris Cuomo, and ex-CNN President Jeff Zucker.
Zucker, meanwhile,abruptly left his roleat the network after failing to disclose a relationship with a colleague.
Speaking to Bloomberg, the former governor said there had been “collateral damage” related to his own resignation.
The report into the accounts of misconduct against him, he said, “hurt a lot of people in a lot of different ways.”
source: people.com
