The number of accusers of alleged sexual harassment by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has grown to five. Cuomo is challenging the allegations made by the former employees. The New York state attorney general initiated investigative proceedings. He still refuses to resign.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James appointed two independent lawyers on Monday, March 8, to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, AFP New York reported. Meanwhile Republican members of the state Assembly initiated impeachment proceedings against him.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced in a statement Monday that she has selected former federal prosecutor Joon Kim and labor discrimination attorney Anne Clark to investigate allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct filed against Cuomo by five women in succession since Feb. 24.
The attorney general said the team was tasked with conducting a comprehensive independent investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against the governor, the circumstances surrounding those allegations and the way the governor’s office handled those cases. The attorney general added that the two lawyers will report weekly to prosecutors on the progress of their work, but no Time frame has been set for the investigation.
The prosecutor’s move to launch the investigation comes amid growing calls to remove the powerful governor from office.
The 63-year-old Democratic governor has been in office for 10 years and was once seen as a hero during the coronary pandemic, praised for his strict management of the outbreak and quick response.
Recently, however, he has been under federal investigation for allegedly deliberately concealing the number of coronavirus deaths in elderly homes (at least 13,000 people died).
Now Cuomo has gone from being the Democratic Party’s hero in the fight against the Epidemic to a “negative asset” in the wake of the scandal. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic majority leader in the New York State Assembly, has joined several of her colleagues in the local legislature in calling for Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.
The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal also published two new testimonies accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment on Saturday. These new testimonies are similar to what Cuomo’s former aides have previously said. They both describe a “toxic” work environment.
But Cuomo refused to resign on Sunday, March 8, saying, “I’m not going to resign because of the allegations. He questioned the “credibility” of the allegations against him. He said, “I was elected by the people of this state,” and “not by politicians.”
In this case, the minority Republican leader of the New York State Assembly announced on Monday the initiation of impeachment against Governor Cuomo. New York State House Republican Leader Will Barclay (R) said Monday, “It’s becoming increasingly clear that regardless of how the hearings and investigations go, the real issue is this: the governor has lost so much credibility and trust that we don’t think he can continue to govern.”
For such an impeachment process to succeed, it would require a majority vote of the 150 House members in the state legislature. The impeachment would then be submitted to the New York State Senate and a seven-judge state appeals court for trial, following a pattern similar to that of the U.S. presidential impeachment process. If a two-thirds majority of the New York State Senate agrees to remove the governor, Cuomo will be removed from office and replaced by his running mate and “deputy,” Democrat Kathy Hochul, who will serve as governor until the November 2022 election.
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