Impeachment probe confirms: yeah, Cuomo’s book deal was shady.
In April, back when a few Cuomosexuals still roamed New York, the Times Union published interviews with anonymous current and former Cuomo staffers claiming they were given tasks related to Cuomo’s memoir about the COVID-19 pandemic, American Crisis, for which Cuomo had received a whopping $5 million, as part of their governmental duties—violating state law. The Cuomo administration roundly denied it, and a lot has happened since then; but yesterday, the New York State Assembly released its report on its eight-month impeachment investigation, which confirms Cuomo used state staff to author and promote his memoir. The probe also concludes that the Cuomo administration manipulated nursing home death data and that Cuomo committed sexual harassment.
“The evidence obtained demonstrates that senior officials, and the former Governor, worked on the Book during the course of normal work routines,” the report, available on Politico’s website, says. “One senior state official referred to work on the Book as no different from any other assignment he received from the Executive Chamber during COVID. The state official explained that Book-related assignments were given by superiors and were expected to be completed like any other task. He further explained that the work was not voluntary, as he was never asked to volunteer and was not aware of other officials being asked to volunteer.” According to the report, another senior official said in a text message in August 2020 “that work on the Book was compromising his ability to work on other COVID-related matters.”
Lower-level aides also were involved in book-related matters—not on a volunteer basis, which is what Cuomo’s administration had claimed. Reads the report, “A junior staffer recalled that late one evening, likely in June or early July, a senior Executive Chamber official instructed junior employees to compile materials related to then-Governor Cuomo’s COVID press briefings on an urgent basis, a task that took approximately five junior employees several hours to complete. In hindsight, the junior staffer believes this work was related to the preparation of [American Crisis].” The report also described several other junior employees admitting to completing book-related tasks on several occasions.
The report also clarified the involvement of Cuomo’s former top aide Melissa DeRosa in the book scandal. The report says a senior staffer (identifiable as DeRosa) “served as the key point of contact” with Penguin Random House, Cuomo’s publisher, and sent and received over one thousand emails about American Crisis from July to December 2020. DeRosa also, according to the report, helped set up an all-day meeting with Penguin Random House, Cuomo, and top staffers on a Friday in July and sent emails during the workweek asking public figures to attend events with Cuomo to promote the book. All in all, it’s pretty damning stuff; maybe Cuomo should have released an 85-page dossier of pictures of him writing books normally.
[h/t Politico]
