In two reports on Saturday, two more former aides to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accused him of sexual harassment, adding to the growing list of charges that spurred calls for Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, to step down – or even face impeachment.
According to Ana Liss, a former policy and operations adviser from Cuomo from 2013 to 2015, the governor asked her about her personal life several times, touched her and on one occasion even kissed her hand. Liss’ allegations were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, supported by memories of several anonymous former employees.
Separately, Karen Hinton – a former adviser to Cuomo who also worked with the now governor as a consultant when he led the New York Department of Housing and Urban Development – told the Washington Post on Saturday that Cuomo invited her to his hotel, asked questions personal to her about her marriage, and hugged her repeatedly in a way that was “too long, too long, too tight, too intimate” when she tried to leave.
“He pulls me back into another intimate hug,” Hinton told the Post about the meeting. “I thought at that moment that it could lead to a kiss, it could lead to other things, so I just walk away again and go.”
Several people also confirmed to the Post that Hinton detailed the meeting for them shortly after it occurred in 2000, with a friend saying that Hinton was “really scared. It really scared her. “
Cuomo’s office rejected both accounts in statements to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, calling Hinton “a well-known antagonist to the governor who is trying to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with allegations made up 21 years ago” and claiming hugs and kisses – the behaviors that make up the supposed improper and unwanted physical contact – are just “what people in politics do”.
Liss and Hinton are far from the only former advisers to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment and misconduct. Both stories are supported by additional anonymous reports from others who worked with or for Cuomo – including that of a federal official who told the Post that Cuomo kissed her on the cheek in front of colleagues shortly after she started working at HUD – and they are the fourth and fifth appointed accusers to have emerged in recent weeks.
Previously, two other former advisers – Lindsey Boylan, now running for president of the Manhattan district, and Charlotte Bennett – accused Cuomo of sexual harassment. A third woman, Anna Ruch, who did not work in Cuomo, said she met the governor at a friend’s wedding and said he tried to kiss her.
Ruch’s claims are also supported by a Photograph of the meeting. His story, like Bennett’s, was first reported by the New York Times. Boylan accused Cuomo of misconduct for the first time in an essay published on Medium in February of this year.
According to Bennett, Cuomo asked her about her sex life and whether she was interested in older men, among other comments.
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me and was terribly uncomfortable and scared,” Bennett told the Times of a June 5 meeting with Cuomo in his office in Albany. “And I was wondering how I was going to get out of this and I assumed it was the end of my job.”
Cuomo is facing a flood of allegations of misconduct now
In addition to a series of sexual harassment charges, Cuomo also faces at least two other closely related scandals that have put his political career at risk.
One revolves around how to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic in New York: despite a star shift for Cuomo at the start of the crisis, when New York was by far the hardest hit area in the country, new reports suggest that Cuomo The government deliberately manipulated mortality statistics in nursing homes to cast the New York response in a more favorable light – and to protect the governor from criticism.
According to the New York Times, Cuomo’s aides – none of whom had public health experience – rewrote a report initially produced by New York state health officials to remove a statistic revealing how many nursing home residents died of the virus in the state.
In addition, a report by New York Attorney General Letitia James found that the Cuomo administration initially underestimated deaths in nursing homes by up to 50 percent, according to the New York Times. After the attorney general’s report was released in late January, the state provided new data that increased the reported number of deaths in nursing homes in New York by more than 40 percent.
Cuomo’s response to the nursing home scandal also turned into a scandal in its own right: in February, New York deputy Ron Kim, who is also a Democrat, said that Cuomo allegedly threatened Kim’s career in politics because of Kim’s criticisms of Cuomo’s treatment of nursing home deaths in New York and Kim’s comments to the New York Post detailing a link that Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s aide, made with lawmakers about the deaths.
“Governor Cuomo called me directly on Thursday to threaten my career if I didn’t cover up Melissa and what she said. He tried to pressure me to issue a statement, and it was a very traumatic experience, ”Kim told CNN last month.
Kim also claims that Cuomo told him, “We are in this business together and we do not cross certain boundaries, and he said that I had not seen his anger and that he can destroy me.”
Kim’s account has since triggered the unveiling of a series of other similar stories about Cuomo by New York politicians, which were reinforced by Saturday’s Washington Post story about Hinton.
According to the Post, Cuomo “was often consumed by anger and irritation towards [staffers], just to be kind and charming in your next interactions. They found the stark contrast to be profoundly disorienting, with some saying that it even caused colleagues to suffer emotional breakdowns. “
In the same story, Kim told the Washington Post that Cuomo’s behavior was a pattern.
“He feels untouchable,” said Kim of Cuomo. “Whether it is verbal or physical abuse, or threatening lawmakers or journalists for doing their jobs, it has reached a level where it is so normalized that it doesn’t think twice before it behaves that way.”
Cuomo says he’s not going anywhere
Despite the growing and diverse set of allegations of misconduct that Cuomo faces, it is unclear what the future holds for him. James, the New York attorney general, opened an independent civil investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo, and Saturday’s revelations could intensify pressure on the governor to step down on his own.
At least one member of the New York Congressional delegation, Rep. Kathleen Rice, has asked Cuomo to resign.
And on Thursday, New York Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins indicated that she would also ask for Cuomo’s resignation if more allegations of sexual harassment were to arise. Since then, two more women – Liss and Hinton – have been officially accusing Cuomo of sexual misconduct.
So far, however, Cuomo has resisted calls to resign, although he made a kind of apology at a news conference on Wednesday.
“I learned from what has been an incredibly difficult situation for me and other people as well, and I learned an important lesson,” said Cuomo on Wednesday. “I am sorry for any pain I have caused anyone. I never had that intention and I will be better with this experience. “
Even if Cuomo remains in office, the recent wave of scandals could undermine his political future in the state. He will be a candidate for re-election in 2022 if he decides to seek a fourth term as governor of New York, and as the Politician points out, he may face a difficult primary election to claim the Democratic nomination for governor.
“Whether he resigns or not, there will be no shortage of candidates in 2022,” an anonymous source told Politico about the situation in Cuomo. “Donors and consultants started to approach potential candidates because they see the writing on the wall.”
Finally, Cuomo’s eventual political fate could have far broader implications for the Democratic Party: as Anna North of Vox wrote, “what happens next” – be it resignation, impeachment or a possible primary repudiation – “will show how Democrats deal with with allegations of sexual misconduct against one of them, more than three years after the I movement also started making headlines. ”