Gov. Andrew Cuomo was defiant and at times seemingly irritated by the line of questioning from reporters asking about his alleged interference in an anti-corruption commission.
Cuomo spoke to reporters in Buffalo on Monday after five days spent out of the public eye since The New York Times published an article that outlined meddling by Cuomo and his administration into ethics investigations of the Moreland Commission, a panel formed to look into government corruption in New York. The article said the administration had backed the commission off serving subpoenas to businesses and individuals allied with the governor.
At one point during Monday”™s press conference, Cuomo denied ever saying that the panel could not investigate him ”“ seemingly in contradiction to a 13-page letter sent to the Times that was quoted in its article. Cuomo said his office had offered “conversation and advice” to commission members but that they rejected direction from the governor”™s top aide, Larry Schwartz.
“If you had watched the movie until the end, the name of the movie would have been ”˜Independence,”™” Cuomo told a Times reporter Monday. “You named it ”˜Interference.”™ Watch the movie to the end.”
The commission was formed amid much fanfare in 2013 then dissolved by the governor in April as part of a deal with the Legislature to pass a package of minor ethics reform bills. Cuomo said the commission was a “phenomenal success” despite its abrupt ending because it led to the reforms.
Cuomo told a Crain”™s New York article reporter in April, “I can”™t ”˜interfere”™ with it, because it is mine. It is controlled by me.” On Monday, he said that independence did not mean the group’s members would not receive advice from the administration. “Independence doesn”™t mean you get holed up in an ivory tower and don”™t talk to anyone,” he told reporters.
The Times, in its coverage of the Buffalo press conference, said that although Cuomo went over some of the points of his 13-page response he also contradicted them. “His revised defenses for his office”™s handling of the anticorruption panel, called the Moreland Commission, seemed increasingly difficult to untangle,” the Times said.
For example, in his initial letter to the Times, Cuomo had criticized commission leadership for its lack of understanding of the state legislative process. On Monday, he praised the work of the commission. He continually called the commission members independent, pointing to a statement by William J. Fitzpatrick, commission co-chairman, in which he denied having been steered by the governor.
The Moreland scandal has been a growing obstacle for Cuomo, a Democrat seeking re-election to a second term this year. His Republican opponent, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, has pounced on the scandal, producing an ad calling the Times”™ revelations “the biggest corruption scandal in years.” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is reviewing files and may conclude some of the commission”™s investigations, a fact Astorino”™s camp mentioned in its latest commercial ad.
“Make no mistake about it: Andrew Cuomo is teetering, both politically and legally,” Astorino said in an email to supporters. “And New Yorkers are feeling burned once again by a con man who rode into Albany promising reform, only to be ensnared in the prosecutorial crosshairs of a corruption scandal himself.”
