In his first interview after announcing his resignation as Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo said he did New Yorkers a favor by not ‘dragging the state’ through a months-long impeachment investigation, only for him to win and make ‘the state government look like a ship of fools.’
‘I feel like I did the right thing. I feel good. I’m not a martyr,’ Cuomo, who resigned after a report from the state found that he had sexually harassed 11 women, told New York Magazine.
Cuomo announced his resignation on Tuesday, which will take effect on Aug. 24. He told New York Magazine that he did not know what he would do next or where he will live after leaving the Albany governor’s mansion.
‘Uh, I don’t know what I’m gonna do,’ Cuomo said. ‘I’m not disappearing.’
Andrew Cuomo was pictured walking in the grounds of the New York State Mansion on Friday. He will be forced to leave the home in two weeks and has no other reported place of residence
Cuomo resigned on Tuesday a week after the state submitted its ‘sex-pest’ report claiming that the governor had sexually abused 11 women during his reign
An unknown woman was spotted at the pool in the governor’s mansion home on Friday
Despite saying he left on his own terms, Cuomo enacted last-ditch efforts in the days leading up to his resignation to cut try and cut deals with members of the state assembly, such as promising not to run for a fourth term if they did not impeach him.
‘If he saw any possible way out, any possible deal that could have been worked out with the legislature for him to leave more gracefully, he would have kept fighting,’ one person close to Cuomo told the magazine. ‘But there was just no path, and for once in his life, there was no one around him to even tell him there was a path.’
The New York State Assembly ultimately suspended their impeachment investigation on Friday.
Carl Heastie – the NY State Assembly Speaker who was overseeing the investigation – said it had been suspended.
He said it came to the attention of the committee that the legislature ‘couldn’t impeach’ an official who was no longer in office, but admitted that if they’d continued, they’d have likely voted to impeach based on the evidence.
He claimed they would turn over all of the evidence they have found since March to relevant authorities.
Without impeachment, Cuomo will be free to run for governor again in the future.
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, told Fox News that the 14-day period was to ensure a transition to the next administration.
‘It’s to ensure an orderly transition at this critical time where the key decisions still remain on COVID, the Delta variant and other significant challenges facing the state,’ Azzopardi said, much to the displeasure of incoming governor Kathy Hochul.
‘It’s not what I asked for,’ the Buffalo native and former congresswoman told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday.
She quickly added: ‘However, I’m looking forward to a smooth transition which he promised.’
Hochul said that in her conversations with Cuomo, the outgoing governor told her that he felt it was important to ensure ‘a transition to continuity.’
Hochul said she plans to ‘take advantage of that time’ in order to ‘engage with the people of the State of New York.’
She said that at the end of the 14-day period, Hochul will once again address the state to discuss the agenda of her incoming administration.
Hochul added there would be no place in her administration for any Cuomo aides who were implicated in unethical behavior by the state attorney general’s investigation of his behavior toward women.
New York Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul says that she would have preferred that Andrew Cuomo’s resignation go into effect sooner than the 14 days that the alleged ‘sex pest’ announced on Tuesday
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie earlier this week claiming the committee would work ‘expeditiously’ to conclude the investigation
Cuomo’s fall from pandemic hero to ‘sex-pest’ officially began in late 2020, when Lindsay Boylan accused him of sexual harassment.
The former state official posted on Twitter that Cuomo had persistently gone after her, detailing the time he asked her to play ‘strip poker’ with him during a flight on a taxpayer-funded jet and later gave her an unwanted kiss in his Manhattan office.
Boylan’s accusations were mostly pushed to the side as Cuomo’s team worked to discredit her, according to State Attorney General Letitia James’s report into Cuomo’s sexual harassment.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James, at the podium, presented the ‘sex-pest’ report on Aug. 3. Earlier in the year, James’s office submitted another report that called into question Cuomo’s policy to force nursing homes to house COVID-19 positive residents
The next hit to Cuomo’s reputation was one he could not sweep on the rug so easily. The State Attorney General’s office published a report in January revealing that Cuomo’s policy to force COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes due to lack of hospital beds ‘may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities.’
The following month, the Associated Press reported that Cuomo’s administration undercounted the loss of life at New York’s nursing homes due to COVID-19 by 50%, with a total of 15,745 New Yorkers dead.
Cuomo contends that he made the right call and his decision saved more lives than it cost by freeing up desperately needed hospital beds.
But the administration also tallied nursing home deaths in a way that was out of step with nearly every other state: It counted only those residents who died on nursing home property, not those who succumbed after being sent to a hospital.
A top aide to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, tried to explain the administration’s delays in releasing data on deaths by saying officials ‘froze’ over worries the information was ‘going to be used against us’ by Trump´s Justice Department.
Cuomo and his administration are currently being investigated by federal prosecutors and the FBI over this issue.
Assemblyman Ron Kim, who lost his uncle to COVID-19 in a nursing home, went after Cuomo for his actions and pushed that the state investigate an alleged cover up.
Although the two politicians argued on TV, the true shock came when Kim claimed he got a message from Cuomo saying that the governor could ‘destroy’ Kim.
Assemblyman Ron Kim has continued to call out Cuomo for his alleged part in contributing to the staggering deaths in the state’s nursing homes. Kim’s uncle was one of the victims
Protestors paid tribute to their loved ones outside Cobble Hill Health Center on March 21, 2021
As news about the message gained traction, so too did Boylan’s previous accusations.
With the governor’s ‘bullying’ tactics beginning to be exposed, Charlotte Bennett, a former aide, came forward in February and revealed that Cuomo had asked her to have a sexual relationship with him.
Then Anna Ruch, a third accuser, told her story of Cuomo forcing a kiss on her when she was attending the wedding of a friend.
Ruch claimed Cuomo approached her for a kiss during the party, and when she refused his advance, the governor allegedly called her ‘aggressive,’ and used both his hands to force a kiss on her.
Other accusations soon followed, and James and her office began a full investigation into the sexual harassment claims.
The report, published on Aug. 3, revealed that Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women.
While Cuomo maintains that he was innocent, three district attorneys are investigating him on the sexual harassment allegations.
Lindsey Boylan, a former state official, was the first to call out Cuomo’s ‘predatory’ behavior in December. She is pictured at a March 20 rally in New York, calling for his impeachment
Pictured here, Charlotte Bennett with Andrew Cuomo. Bennett came forward in February and claimed that the governor had asked her to be in a sexual relationship with him
Anna Ruch said the governor had approached her during a friend’s wedding and tried to kiss her. When she rebuked him, he said he called her ‘aggressive’ and forced a kiss on her
Top democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden had all called on Cuomo to resign amid the scandals.
Biden noted that he was ‘sad’ about the resignation as he believed Cuomo had done a ‘hell of a job,’ as governor.
President Donald Trump, a fellow New Yorker who had Cuomo argued with during the pandemic, had also called on him to resign.
‘To tell you the truth, this guy is a total loser, and New York, as well as the entire country, is better off without him,’ Trump wrote in a message to his supporters.
President Donald Trump, pictured leaving Trump Tower on July 19, said New York and the country would be better off without Cuomo following the governor’s resignation
President Joe Biden called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation ‘sad’ during a back-and-forth with reporters at the White House Tuesday, after calling on the Democrat to resign a week ago
In his 20-minute resignation speech, he addressed his three daughters, calling them his ‘jewels’ and saying he had ‘made mistakes and learned from them’, but insisting he was not the serial abuser the report made him out to be.
Cuomo has served as governor of New York since 2011 and was the highest paid governor in American history with a $225,000-a-year salary.
It remains to be seen how involved Cuomo will be in state government over the next two weeks, or how he’ll manage handing over authority – something he rarely ceded during his time in office.
His circle of advisers has shrunk, but his closest aide and policymaking partner Melissa DeRosa – who was a familiar face at Cuomo’s side during his televised briefings on New York´s fight against the coronavirus pandemic – made a surprise return after having announced her resignation from the administration Sunday.
The governor’s office said she will remain in her job as secretary to the governor until Cuomo departs.