The big news last week was the blockbuster story by the New York Times that carefully examined Governor Cuomo\u2019s involvement in the activities of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption.<\/p>\n
The Moreland Commission was created by Governor Cuomo last year.\u00a0 The goal of the Commission was to investigate the unending scandals that have plagued Albany.\u00a0 The Commission was touted as independent of political pressure and Governor Cuomo said at that time that it would be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it led, “Anything they want to look at, they can look at \u2014 me, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, any senator, any assemblyman.”<\/p>\n
The Times\u2019s story unveiled a disturbing picture of the Cuomo Administration\u2019s strategy to improperly use the Moreland Commission as a political tool instead of allowing it to act as an independent investigative body as promised by the governor himself.\u00a0 Instead of allowing the Commission to independently investigate political actions as it saw fit, the Administration directed the Commission to instead focus on the state Legislature, not the governor\u2019s office or his political allies.<\/p>\n
The Times reported that the Cuomo Administration stopped inquiries into the activities of a political ally, the Real Estate Board of New York, even when concerns were raised regarding possible “quid-pro-quo” use of campaign contributions to influence legislation.\u00a0 More broadly, the Times reported that the Administration blocked an inquiry by the Commission\u2019s investigators into the Committee to Save New York \u2013 a secretive lobbying organization inspired by the governor \u2013 that lobbied on behalf of the Administration\u2019s legislative agenda.<\/p>\n
The Times also reported on the administration\u2019s efforts to block Commission inquiries into the State Democratic Committee\u2019s “housekeeping accounts” since that spending may have impacted a firm that the governor has used for campaign activities.<\/p>\n
Another troubling aspect is the Times\u2019s revelation that the governor\u2019s top aides directed the affairs of the Commission with an alleged concern for partisan politics in mind.\u00a0 The investigation into a company, Buying Time LLC\u2019s, expense receipts from a political party committee, for example, was hobbled because they had also received money from the governor\u2019s campaign committee.<\/p>\n
The governor issued a 13-page response to The Times article that basically argues that since the Commission is his own creation, “I can\u2019t \u2018interfere\u2019 with it, because it is mine. It is controlled by me.”<\/p>\n
Yet, that is not entirely true.\u00a0 Members of the Commission were also deputized by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as assistant Attorneys General.\u00a0 Efforts by the Administration to block investigations by those who should be considered members of the Attorney General office must be prohibited.\u00a0 The Times\u2019s reporting raises serious questions about the actions of the Cuomo Administration vis-\u00c3\u00a0-vis investigations advanced by the Commission, which were essentially law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n
As mentioned earlier, the governor argues that his Administration\u2019s actions did not constitute an effort to obstruct the Commissioners.<\/p>\n
It comes down to the Times\u2019s version versus the governor\u2019s.\u00a0 It is up to the governor to make the public case as to why one of the world\u2019s most prestigious news outlets got it wrong.\u00a0 The governor should immediately release all relevant documents relating to its interactions with the Commission and hold an in-person news conference to respond to the Times\u2019s reports.\u00a0 New Yorkers have a right to expect that public officials meet the highest ethical standards.<\/p>\n
If he fails to do so, the result will be that the public agrees with the Times.\u00a0 And if that happens the sad story of the Cuomo Administration\u2019s track record of failed reforms will continue.<\/p>\n
In this case, Governor Cuomo\u2019s appointment of a Moreland Commission to fight public corruption was supposed to turn around widespread cynicism about New York government. Instead, Cuomo\u2019s Commission drowned in Albany\u2019s political culture and in bad advice from the Cuomo Administration. What should have been a legacy of fighting public corruption has become yet another symbol of Albany\u2019s dysfunction.That\u2019s all for now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The big news last week was the blockbuster story by the New York Times that carefully examined Governor Cuomo\u2019s involvement in the activities of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. The Moreland Commission was created by Governor Cuomo last year.\u00a0 The goal of the Commission was to investigate the unending scandals that have plagued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,92,5,72,93],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-committee-to-save-new-york","tag-cuomo","tag-ethics","tag-moreland-commission","tag-real-estate-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}