Tuesday’s revelation that the investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s impeachment would likely take months has prompted another former aide to say she will not cooperate with the state assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
Ana Liss told The Post: “As far as the Assembly’s investigation is concerned, I am uncomfortable.”
“I cannot participate with confidence knowing about the controversial ties, lack of transparency, politicization and non-participation on behalf of my accusing colleagues whose allegations are more blatant / explicit than mine,” she said by email.
Liss’s comments came after Cuomo’s former aide Lindsey Boylan last week called the Judiciary Committee’s investigation a “farce” and accused Assembly President Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) of using it as a security tactic. postponement on behalf of the governor.
“Don’t trust @CarlHeastie. His impeachment investigation was not designed to be transparent or to move forward quickly, and there is nothing @NYGovCuomo wants more than time, ”Boylan posted on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a third accuser’s lawyer, former Cuomo advisor Charlotte Bennett, told The Post on Tuesday that his client “is committed to cooperating with all appropriate government investigations, including the impeachment investigation.”
But lawyer Debra Katz added that “questions about independence” remain in the impeachment investigation.
Last week, Katz said that the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, who was hired to assist lawmakers in the investigation, had an “unacceptable conflict of interest” because the husband of the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Janet DiFiore, was partner there for more than three decades.
Liss, Boylan and Bennett have already been interviewed by outside lawyers hired by Attorney General Letitia James for an independent investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Charles Lavine (D-Long Island), said that the impeachment investigation would likely take “months instead of weeks” due to the “breadth and seriousness of the issues”.
Lavine noted that Heastie “directed us to examine all credible claims, including, but not limited to,” those involving sexual harassment and assault, the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of state bridges.
Lavine also said that “the key is, including, but not limited to” these issues.