Assemblyman: Judiciary report on Cuomo to come - Times Union

An earlier version of this story Sunday had the incorrect day when Steck received the text about a possible report coming.

ALBANY — Assembly Judiciary Committee members were told Saturday morning that, tentatively, a report on its mostly secretive findings to date on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo would be released to the public, according to a text message sent to them. 

"In addition to forwarding all evidence to relevant investigative authorities, the Assembly Judiciary Committee will complete its work and issue a final report," a text message to committee members Saturday at 10:43 a.m. reads, according to member Phil Steck, a Democrat from Colonie who shared the text with the Times Union. 

The day prior, Friday, Speaker Carl E. Heastie and committee Chairman Charles D. Lavine declared its investigation over. They did not say they would issue a report.

Heastie's spokesman, Lavine and his spokesman did not return requests for comment Sunday. The status of a report on an investigation that Heastie has said cost millions of dollars remains unclear; investigations into Cuomo are valued at $10.3 million, according to state comptroller contracts, but final numbers are not yet known.

Heastie said in his statement Friday afternoon that the committee would turn over relevant information to investigators, who continue to look into the issues, which include the counting of nursing home deaths, a $5.1 million book deal and political favors to Cuomo's family. 

The lack of commitment to issue a report contributed in part to the ire from a wide-ranging group, including politicians on opposite sides of the aisle, advocates and the women who were found by investigators to have been harassed by the governor. 

Statements calling for at least a report and, preferably, an impeachment, of Cuomo poured in over the weekend since Heastie and Lavine announced Friday afternoon they were ceasing its impeachment investigation into the governor.

"The speaker can't muster enough courage to simply do his job," said Charlotte Bennett, who was found to be harassed by the governor in the attorney general's report, in a statement Sunday. "After spending millions of taxpayer dollars and issuing lofty statements, he's failed to lift a finger to make clear that New York rejects Cuomo's behavior."

Bennett said Heastie was taking "the coward's way out" and setting a disturbing precedent by dropping the impeachment investigation. Lindsey Boylan, who also was found to be harassed by Cuomo in the AG's report, said on Friday that the decision to call it off was an "unjust cop out." 

"The public deserves to know the extent of the governor's misdeeds and possible crimes," Boylan said.

The suspension of the investigation "undermines the mission" of the committee, Republicans of the Judiciary Committee said in a joint statement Friday. They called for the committee, which has no pending meeting date, to come together immediately to issue a report.

They first attributed their decision to the fact Cuomo had announced his resignation, which they were arguing was the goal and scope of their impeachment probe — despite prior statements that said the goal was multi-pronged, including seeking justice for the abuses of power they viewed that Cuomo might have committed.

Secondly, they cited legal opinions that the state Constitution does not give them the clear authority to impeach a governor who has already removed himself from office. Constitutional scholars the Times Union spoke to last week, at Siena College and Albany Law School, could not find precedent that said the committee could impeach Cuomo after he left office, but left open the door both to the impeachment happening within the governor's final two weeks in office and that there could be other, less clear avenues. 

Assemblyman Ron T. Kim, a Queens Democrat, published a contrary opinion that was drafted by Cornell Law professor Robert Hockett over the weekend that suggested the Assembly's opinion was inaccurate and there was plenty of legal authority to continue on with impeachment. The goal to bar the governor from seeking public office again was particularly important to Kim, a frequent critic of Cuomo; some experts believe that the only way to bar someone from holding office is first to vote to convict them in their impeachment. If they have already been removed from office, then that ability would no longer exist. 

"I don't think we should shy away from dealing with the pattern of abuse by this governor," said Steck, who attributes it in part to the powers the executive branch has in New York to dictate the budget. 

Steck, an attorney, compared Cuomo's resignation despite impeachable offenses to someone who committed a robbery, finds out they  are under criminal charges, then gives the items stolen back and expects the charges to be dropped.

In fact, Steck said, Cuomo's statements to New York Magazine, which were published Friday, suggested to him that Cuomo has not backed off his belief that he did anything wrong. Cuomo told the magazine: "I’m not gonna drag the state through the mud, through a three-month, four-month impeachment, and then win, and have made the State Legislature and the state government look like a ship of fools." 

Lavine had previously said the goal of impeachment was not just to attempt to remove Cuomo from office, but to pursue justice.

"I don't think it's impossible to have two abstractly competing theories in one's mind, at the same time," Lavine said last Monday. "That's how investigations are done." 

Pressed to further explain his answer by the Times Union, Lavine said that despite believing that the allegations in the attorney general's report rose to the level of an impeachable offense, he wanted the committee to finish putting together its entire investigation. With including issues like nursing homes and the book deal, the committee could add additional articles of impeachment that would "make sure we are in a position to be able to present our best case."

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