A bombshell report presented by the New York attorney general's investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Andrew Cuomo found that the Democratic Governor had sexually harassed multiple women.
The office of Attorney General Letitia James detailed the allegations of 11 women claiming harassment and found that the New York Governor’s behaviour fed into a pattern of "unwelcome and non-consensual touching".
Both current and former state employees, as well as a number of women outside of state government, claimed Cuomo had grabbed their buttocks, planted unwanted kisses, and slipped hands under their clothes to grope their breasts. The Governor was also accused of making comments of a "suggestive" sexual nature about cheating and dating.
Screenshot from Appendix III to the Report of Investigation Into Allegations of Sexual Harassment by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
© Photo : State of New York Office of the Attorney General Letitia James
Even a doctor who swabbed his nose while carrying out his COVID-19 test last May got a taste of that conduct. Cuomo reportedly asked the woman to not put up the swab “so deep that you hit my brain”, with the doctor promising “to be “gentle but accurate”. The woman ostensibly felt the Governor was trying to make a “joke of an implied sexual nature” when he responded, “Gentle but accurate, I've heard that before”.
At the press conference later, Cuomo addressed the same doctor in front of the cameras with the quip:
“Nice to see you, Doctor—you make that gown look good.”
Overall, the New York attorney general's report - the result of a months-long civic investigation – asserted that Andrew Cuomo’s conduct had created a "hostile work environment for women”. After 179 individuals were interviewed and 74,000 pieces of evidence reviewed, the assembled evidence painted a "deeply disturbing yet clear picture", said the report.
Andrew Cuomo pictured with "Executive Assistant #1"
© Photo : New York Attorney General
While investigators repeatedly described Cuomo's conduct as "unlawful", a footnote in the report clarified that it was not offering a conclusion as to "whether the conduct amounts to or should be the subject of criminal prosecution".
In the wake of the report, President Joe Biden joined his voice to a chorus of calls for Cuomo to resign.
"I think he should resign. I understand that the state legislature may decide to impeach. I don’t know that for a fact. I’ve not read all that data,” the president told reporters at the White House.
The embattled Governor has denied the allegations.
"I want you to know directly from me that I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances," Cuomo said in a speech Tuesday.
While the findings could pave the way for a criminal investigation into the accusations, legal experts cited by US media caution that the standard for criminal prosecution is greater than state Attorney General Letitia James' civil investigation.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York follows in the footsteps of a spate of Democratic political figures who have been accused of sexual harassment or assault.
Eric Schneiderman
Just a few years ago, before finding himself in the cross hairs of the current sex scandal, Governor Andrew Cuomo urged fellow Democrat Eric T. Schneiderman, then the New York State attorney general, to quit.
Schneiderman was forced to resign in 2018 just hours after The New Yorker broke a story reporting that four women had accused him of physically assaulting them. Two of the women claimed they were “choked and hit repeatedly” by the politician, who denied the allegations.
Nevertheless, several leaders in the party, including Cuomo — urged him to step down.
“My personal opinion is that, given the damning pattern of facts and corroboration laid out in the article, I do not believe it is possible for Eric Schneiderman to continue to serve as attorney general,” said Cuomo said at the time.
Katie Hill
Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Katie Hill resigned from Congress in October 2019 after the publication of nude photos of the politician frolicking with junior staffer Morgan Desjardins, age 22 at the time.
An ethics probe was also launched into the Democrat from California over her alleged affair with another aide.
Hill had been quick to shift the blame on her “abusive” husband Kenneth Heslep, claiming he leaked the snaps exposing a ‘throuple’ sexual relationship they were having with a young female campaign staffer to derail her political career.
Hill had been quick to shift the blame on her “abusive” husband Kenneth Heslep, claiming he leaked the snaps exposing a ‘throuple’ sexual relationship they were having with a young female campaign staffer to derail her political career.
Eliot Spitzer
Once billed as potential president material, lauded as a rising star in the Democratic party, then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign in March 2008 after being identified in an affidavit as “Client-9” for the Emperors Club VIP. The latter was a high-end prostitution ring to which Spitzer allegedly paid thousands of dollars to have sex with a prostitute.
The discovery of Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes was made due to the use of a wiretap during the course of an investigation into Emperors Club VIP.
Spitzer, who had made a name for himself with high-profile prosecutions against organised crime and corruption, did not face criminal charges, however.
The man once dubbed the “sheriff of Wall Street” delivered a short statement where he did not refer to the allegations that he had employed the services of a high-class prostitute, but admitted he had acted in a way that "violated my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right or wrong".
Bill Clinton
Ex-POTUS Bill Clinton, who served as the 42nd US president in 1993-2001, once referred to his much-publicised affair with Monica Lewinsky as a way of “managing his anxieties”.
Clinton made the remarks as part of a documentary series titled "Hillary" which spanned the public life of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was eventually beaten to the Oval Office by Republican Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying to investigators about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky - a 22-year-old White House intern at the time of the affair. His relationship with Lewinsky became a major news story in the late 1990s. While initially denying the affair, the then-president later admitting to "inappropriate intimate physical contact".
Lewinsky maintained that her relationship with Clinton was consensual, saying she had "limited understanding of the consequences" at the time and regrets the affair daily. Bill Clinton, who was acquitted at his Senate trial, said later in the Hulu documentary:
"What I did was bad but it wasn't like I thought, let's think about the most stupid thing I could possibly do and do it. You feel like you're staggering around - you've been in a 15-round prize-fight that was extended to 30 rounds, and here's something that'll take your mind off it for a while. Everybody has life's pressures and disappointments and terrors, fears or whatever, things I did to manage my anxieties for years."
Joe Biden
President Joe Biden, during his time as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also faced heightened scrutiny over his conduct towards women. He was criticized for reports of repeatedly commenting on the physical appearance of women on the campaign trail.
Furthermore, eight women have alleged that the former Vice President touched them inappropriately in ways that made them “uncomfortable”. Tara Reade, a former Senate aide, who worked as a staff assistant to Biden from 1992-93 when he was a senator for the US state of Delaware, claimed he sexually assaulted her in 1993.
In 1993, her former boss purportedly forced her against a wall and put his hands under her shirt and skirt.
"There was no exchange, really, he just had me up against the wall," she said in a 2020 podcast to Katie Halper.
Biden vehemently denied the allegations, as well as other accusations of being “touchy-feely".