Hochul to become first woman governor, effective in 14 days
ALBANY â Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday said he will resign as governor, effective in 14 days, in the wake of an attorney general’s report that concluded he was a serial sexual harasser.
Cuomo made the announcement in an online announcement that began with him characterizing the attorney general’s report into sexual misconduct allegations against him as “unfairly motivated ⊠untruthful.” But in a pibot, Cuomo then said that he is a fighter but must step aside rather than tie up New York government in an impeachment proceeding that would paralyze the state for months.
“I became a fighter but I became a fighter for you. It is for your best interests that I must serve,” he said.
He said that while he will continue to dispute the attorney general’s findings, fighting an impeachment proceeding “will cost taxpayers millions of dollars; it will brutalize people. âŠGovernment needs to reform, It is a matter of life and death. Government operations and wasting money on distractions is the last thing that government should be doing. I cannot be the cause of that.”
“Thank you for the honor of serving you. It has been the honor of my lifetime,” Cuomo added, after apologizing to his family, noting he had learned lessons from the experience.
Kathy Hochul, a former member of Congress from Western New York who has served as Cuomo’s lieutenant governor since 2015, will become the first woman to lead New York’s executive branch.
Cuomo’s exit from office in the aftermath of the Aug. 3 release of a devastating report from the office of state Attorney General Letitia James comes as the state Assembly in recent days moved toward an impeachment proceeding that could have made him the first New York governor to be removed from office since William Sulzer in 1913. The report from James’ office concluded that Cuomo sexually harassed almost a dozen women, including several state employees.
Cuomo has denied touching anyone “inappropriately” while at the same time apologizing for what he has described as cultural or generational behaviors that he only recently recognized were wrong. The governor’s outside legal team has attempted to push back on elements of the report, which they argue was biased and conducted by investigators with an agenda to get Cuomo.
The news marks the ignominious conclusion to a four-decade political career that began in the administration of his late father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, and included service as federal housing secretary in the 1990s and as state attorney general from 2007 through 2010. Along the way, Andrew Cuomo drew praise for his undeniable political skills and frequent criticism for his tendency to hammer opponents, and even some longtime allies, into submission to his will. His exit â with more than a year to go in his third term â leaves a significant power vacuum in a state Democratic party that has been tightly controlled by Cuomo through his gubernatorial tenure.
The departure capped a stunning reversal in his fortunes since the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, a period in which he drew praise (and subsequently won an Emmy award) for his televised daily briefings on the virus’ spread. The beginning of 2020, however, saw the administration beset by a string of controversies involving â among other matters â the administration’s handling of the pandemic in nursing homes and its stonewalling of fatality data; Cuomo’s use of state employees to assist in the production of “American Crisis,” a COVID-19 memoir for which he struck a publishing deal worth more than $5 million; as well as the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against him.
Cuomo is the second governor of New York to be forced from office due to sexual impropriety in less than 14 years following Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s March 2008 resignation amid a federal investigation that exposed his patronage of high-end prostitutes. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned from his statewide post in May 2018 after a New Yorker article detailed allegations that he had committed sexual violence against women.
The release of the attorney general’s report five months after Cuomo requested the launch of an inquiry into the allegations against him resulted in near-universal calls for his resignation or impeachment.
Over the weekend, current Executive Chamber employee Brittany Commisso revealed her identity in an interview with the Times Union and CBS News that detailed her accusations â first reported in the Times Union in March â that Cuomo had repeatedly subjected her to unwanted sexual touching, including an episode in which he allegedly groped her in his office on the second floor of the governor’s mansion. Cuomo has denied the incident occurred.
On Sunday evening, Cuomo’s top aide Melissa DeRosa announced she was resigning from the administration. The attorney general’s report detailed DeRosa’s attempts to defend the governor from the initial wave of sexual harassment allegations, including her efforts to distribute personnel materials on former state development official Lindsey Boylan, one of the women who has accused Cuomo.
