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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced his resignation on Tuesday, bowing to strain to go away workplace or face impeachment within the wake of a number of sexual-harassment allegations.
Cuomo stated in an look in New York Metropolis that he would go away workplace in 14 days and Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul would take over, changing into New York’s first feminine governor. Cuomo maintained that he didn’t harass anybody however was “inconsiderate” in the best way he spoke to and touched girls on his employees.
“In my thoughts, I’ve by no means crossed the road with anybody,” stated Cuomo, 63. “However I didn’t realise the extent to which the road has been redrawn.”
The transfer marks a surprising denouement to a decades-long political profession. A 12 months in the past, Cuomo was successful reward for his coronavirus response and talked about as a possible presidential candidate. However in latest months, his status soured as a number of girls made claims that included unsolicited hugs, kisses and touches, questions on their intercourse lives, even an invite to play strip poker whereas on a authorities airplane. Probably the most critical accusation, below prison investigation by the Albany County sheriff, alleged the governor had groped an aide at his govt mansion.
Each state Lawyer Normal Letitia James and the state Meeting Judiciary Committee had been investigating the harassment claims for months. The Meeting additionally was claims that Cuomo’s administration coated up Covid nursing-home deaths, supplied family members with virus testing earlier than it was broadly accessible, mishandled building of the Mario Cuomo Bridge and misused public sources whereas accepting $5 million to put in writing a e-book, “American Disaster: Management Classes from the Covid-19 Pandemic.”
The top of Cuomo’s time period started when James launched her report one week in the past, documenting 11 claims of sexual harassment that Cuomo’s lawyer, Rita Glavin, was nonetheless disputing to reporters minutes earlier than Cuomo resigned.
Cuomo on Tuesday apologised to the ladies cited in James’s report and known as it “false,” however stated his choice to go away was in the perfect curiosity of New Yorkers. He stated he didn’t deliberately sexually harass anybody and accepts “full duty” if he offended anybody.
“The report stated I sexually harassed 11 girls. That was the headline folks heard and noticed and reacted to. The response was outrage — it ought to have been — nonetheless it was additionally false,” he stated.
Cuomo had launched a taped assertion after James launched her report final Tuesday however has been holed up within the Government Mansion in Albany, and has resisted calls to resign from President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders across the nation.
White Home Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that Biden had not spoken to Cuomo and he was unaware the governor was going to resign. She additionally stated he has no plans to achieve out to Cuomo.
“This can be a story about these brave girls who got here ahead, advised their tales, shared their tales and an investigation by the lawyer common that after all concluded as we speak in an final result that the president known as for simply final week,” Psaki stated.
Different Democrats who had known as for his resignation, together with US Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer of New York, stated he did the best factor.
Cuomo stated he selected to resign as a result of the drawn-out impeachment course of that was coming would “brutalise folks” and price taxpayers tens of millions of {dollars}.
Cuomo’s refusal to go away when the allegations surfaced within the spring had help from a number of Democrats, however many modified their tune because the variety of accusers grew. Meeting Speaker Carl Heastie had resisted impeachment, pushing for a much less extreme Meeting Judiciary Committee evaluate as a primary step.
On Monday, Heastie stated his members had “no confidence within the governor to stay in workplace,” and pledged to maneuver quick to finish an impeachment investigation of Cuomo and produce a “unhappy chapter” of the state’s historical past to a conclusion.
Simply eight governors in US historical past have been impeached and faraway from workplace, and only one in New York — William Sulzer in 1913. The newest governor ousted was Illinois’s Rod Blagojevich, in 2009, for making an attempt to solicit bribes to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.
Cuomo has been below rising scrutiny since James launched a damning report in January that discovered the state undercounted Covid-19 deaths tied to nursing houses by as a lot as 50%, and issued state steering that will have put residents in danger. The Division of Justice, the FBI and the US lawyer’s workplace within the Japanese District of New York had been reported to have launched investigations into his administration, which has been accused of stripping the info from a public report and hiding the true numbers from lawmakers. The governor has acknowledged errors in reporting of the info however has defended his selections.
Then, the allegations of sexual-harassment and different office improprieties got here crashing down.
In late February, two former aides detailed accusations of sexual harassment, setting off a bipartisan enchantment by lawmakers and politicians for an impartial investigation into the claims. The primary accuser, former economic-development aide Lindsey Boylan, accused Cuomo of giving her an undesirable kiss at his Manhattan workplace and alluring her to play strip poker on a taxpayer-funded flight. The second, former aide Charlotte Bennett, 25, stated that Cuomo requested her quite a few questions on her intercourse life, together with whether or not she had ever been intimate with older males.
In March, three extra girls got here ahead: Anna Ruch described inappropriate conduct by Cuomo at a marriage, and a photograph circulated of the governor, who she didn’t know, cupping her face. Former press aide Karen Hinton, who labored for Cuomo when he was secretary for Housing and City Growth below President Invoice Clinton, stated the governor embraced her in a lodge room in 2000. Ana Liss, a former coverage and operations aide who labored for Cuomo from 2013 to 2015, stated Cuomo requested her if she had a boyfriend, known as her sweetheart, touched her on her decrease again at a reception, and as soon as kissed her hand when she rose from her desk.
Greater than 74 000 paperwork, emails, texts and images had been reviewed as proof, and 179 folks had been interviewed.
Cuomo had urged lawmakers and the general public to withhold judgment till James’s investigation was full. However even after James launched the report, Cuomo continued to declare his innocence and refuse to budge.
Hochul would serve the rest of his time period via 2022. She plans to carry a information convention within the governor’s Manhattan workplace Wednesday afternoon.
“I agree with Governor Cuomo’s choice to step down. It’s the proper factor to do and in the perfect curiosity of New Yorkers,” Hochul stated in an announcement after Cuomo’s announcement. “As somebody who has served in any respect ranges of presidency and is subsequent within the line of succession, I’m ready to guide as New York State’s 57th Governor.“
Hochul, 62, has been Cuomo’s second-in-command since 2015. She is an lawyer and former member of Congress who has principally stayed out of the limelight.
At one level, Cuomo had deliberate to run for an unprecedented fourth time period as New York’s governor. His father, former Governor Mario Cuomo, served three phrases, from 1983 to 1995, and was defeated for a fourth time period by Republican George Pataki.
© 2021 Bloomberg
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