Albany, NY – A woman currently working in the New York governor’s office, Andrew Cuomo, says she looked at her shirt and made suggestive comments to her and another aide, according to a newspaper report published Friday.
Alyssa McGrath told The New York Times that Cuomo called her beautiful in Italian, referred to her and her colleague as “mingle boobs”, asked why she was not wearing a wedding ring and asked about her divorce, McGrath said.
McGrath is the first current aide to speak out publicly about the growing allegations of sexual misconduct against Cuomo, who is the subject of an impeachment investigation by the New York Assembly, the state’s lower legislative chamber, presumably because of these charges and questions about the way the governor is handling data on deaths in COVID-19 nursing homes.
McGrath told The New York Times that his colleague was the same woman the governor is accused of groping at the Executive Mansion, a claim that was revealed in a report last week in the Times Union of Albany. This advisor has not been publicly identified.
McGrath did not accuse the governor of improper touch.
Cuomo, a Democrat, has repeatedly denied accusations of sexual misconduct. His lawyer told The New York Times that Cuomo actually used Italian phrases like “ciao bella”, which means “hello beautiful” in Italian, and greeted men and women with hugs and a kiss.
“None of this is remarkable, although it may be old-fashioned,” said lawyer Rita Glavin. “He made it clear that he never made inappropriate advances or touched anyone inappropriately.”
THIS IS A LATEST NEWS UPDATE The previous history of the AP follows below.
ALBANY, NY – New York’s legislative leaders still need to answer key questions about plans to launch an impeachment investigation by Governor Andrew Cuomo, including how long it will take, how public their procedures or conclusions will be, or what types of misconduct they may have. fall under your scrutiny.
Democratic Assembly President Carl Heastie announced the inquiry last week about the governor, who is accused of sexual misconduct and has faced questions about COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, without disclosing those details.
And the Assembly’s judiciary committee, New York’s lower legislative chamber, has yet to meet on the issue, although it took an initial step this week – hiring the Davis Polk & Wardwell Manhattan law firm to assist with the investigation.
The pace of the investigation has frustrated some lawmakers who want Cuomo to leave now.
“It is very strange for me and I think we need to ask a lot of questions here”, Congresswoman Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat. “With any kind of lack of transparency or lack of access to any process, one must ask about the motivations and ask: Why?”
John Kaehny, executive director of the good governance group Reinvent Albany, said that Assembly leaders have an obligation to explain how the investigation will develop.
“Impeachment is not something that New York does regularly, so no one really knows how it should work,” he said. “We know it is very important and it must be as transparent as possible.”
Meanwhile, research suggests that, although Cuomo’s support has waned after an allegation that he palpated an aide at the Executive Mansion, his political base has not abandoned him.
A new survey by Quinnipiac University with 905 registered voters found that while 43% believed he should resign, 36% of women interviewed said he should resign, and 23% of Democrats.
Among respondents of all political affiliations, 36% said that Cuomo should be removed and removed from office.
Only 16 U.S. governors have been fired for impeachment, said lawyer and professor Ross Garber, who represented impeachment governors in Alabama, Connecticut and South Carolina.
Cuomo’s conduct with women is also the subject of an investigation overseen by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James.
Women accused Cuomo of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. Federal prosecutors are also examining whether the Cuomo administration misled the public or the United States Department of Justice about COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
Cuomo says he never touched anyone inappropriately. He apologized, however, for what he said were attempts to engage in office pranks, which now notice offended women who worked for him.
Heastie said the decisions on the investigation will be decided by the chairman of the judiciary committee, Charles Lavine. Lavine forwarded the interview requests to Heastie, whose office did not answer questions from The Associated Press.
Assembly member Ron Kim said lawmakers are also not getting the answers they need.
“None of us have any idea what is going on with this investigation,” he said. “And it is very disturbing and alarming for many of my colleagues.”
The lawyer for one of Cuomo’s accusers, Charlotte Bennett, said she would not cooperate with the Assembly inquiry due to questions about potential political interference.
The New York constitution does not specify a process for investigating allegations of a governor’s misconduct.
The U.S. House of Representatives followed two different paths in the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
Prior to his first impeachment case, on charges related to Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, he held weeks of public hearings and received public testimony from witnesses. But his second impeachment was delayed a few days after the January 6 invasion of the United States Capitol.
There is often pressure for state lawmakers to conduct investigations, according to consultant John Fritchey, a former Illinois lawmaker who served on the special investigative committee that drafted an impeachment resolution against former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
“The public needs to be confident that the legislature did the right thing for the right reasons,” said Fritchey.
Unlike New York, Illinois launched an investigation of the committee with a vote that established ground rules for weeks of public hearings.
“Generally, what the legislative bodies do is establish rules at the beginning that govern the investigation,” said Garber.
Heastie said that getting the Assembly to conduct its own thorough investigation is the right answer. Other lawmakers say any delay will only help Cuomo.
“We already have enough information to write the impeachment articles,” tweeted Senator Alessandra Biaggi, who has worked in the Cuomo government and has spoken publicly about being intimidated by the governor.
“A delay in impeachment does exactly what the governor wants most, which is for public pressure to calm down.”