Just try to follow this logic.
The New York State Assembly’s Judiciary Committee has held its first meeting regarding its impeachment probe of Governor Andrew Cuomo. The committee’s conclusion — try to follow this — is that if Cuomo had committed one impeachable offense, it might be a straightforward matter for the Assembly to file an article of impeachment; however, since there are numerous allegations of impeachable offenses, the investigation could go on interminably before articles are potentially filed.
As the New York Post reports, the committee is saying the inquiry into the governor’s alleged misconduct could take “months” to complete because there are so many allegations. As committee chairman Charles Lavine, a Long Island Democrat, put it, “Given the breadth and seriousness of the issues under investigation, we expect that the timing will be in terms of months, rather than weeks.” (I should note that Chuck Lavine was a superb criminal defense lawyer when I dealt with him, as a prosecutor, in the 1990s.)
The chairman elaborated that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (a Bronx Democrat) “has directed us to examine all credible allegations, including but not limited to — and here the key is, including but not limited to — did the governor use his office to sexually harass or assault women who were his employees?”
We should note that the first of Cuomo’s sexual harassment accusers, Lindsey Boylan, has accused Speaker Heastie, a Cuomo ally, of using the probe as a pretext to delay matters and give Cuomo the time he needs to ride out the crisis and survive. Boylan, a progressive Democrat who is running for Manhattan Borough president, has described the Assembly effort as a “sham,” and vows not to cooperate with it.
In marked contrast, Boylan is cooperating with the Cuomo investigation commissioned by state Attorney General Letitia James, another progressive Democrat – the same Letitia James whose January report concluded that Cuomo’s administration had significantly under-reported nursing-home deaths (the number of which was almost certainly driven higher by Cuomo’s executive order requiring these facilities to take COVID-positive patients).
Lavine explained that his committee will be investigating not only the nursing-home scandal and the sexual-harassment claims, but also whether Cuomo was aware “of executive personnel withholding information regarding safety concerns about New York state bridges, or did he direct or have knowledge of executive personnel, attempting to suppress related investigations?”
Earlier this month, the Albany Times Union reported allegations that contractors had covered up faulty bolts on the $3.9 billion Mario Cuomo Bridge (spearheaded by the governor to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge, and named after his father, also a three-term New York governor). The administration has vehemently denied involvement in any cover-up, maintaining that it learned of possible bolt failures in 2016 and promptly reported them to the proper state authorities.
In any event, several days ago, U.S. Representative Mondaire Jones, another young, New York progressive Democrat, asked the Biden administration to look into the bridge issue. Just yesterday, the state Thruway Authority announced that the Federal Highway Administration had conducted an investigation and found no safety concerns regarding the bridge.
Obviously, if there are safety concerns regarding any bridge, let alone one as heavily trafficked as the Cuomo Bridge, it is imperative that they be investigated (as they appear to have been). But what the bridge has to do with the current impeachment inquiry is not apparent. To date, it is not even clear that there was misconduct, let alone that Cuomo was aware of it, much less complicit in it. At this point, the bridge issue is not in the same category (in terms of evaluating the governor’s fitness for office) as the nursing-home and sexual-harassment issues. Its being thrown into the hopper by the Assembly will only add grist to the suspicions that Heastie is trying to help Cuomo play out the string.
We are used to the Washington infighting between Republicans and Democrats, where knowing a player’s partisan affiliation usually tells you where that player stands in the controversy. To understand what’s happening in New York, and with Governor Cuomo specifically, we must instead bear in mind that there is an internecine Democratic battle, between woke progressives and the party establishment.
Get the scorecard that sorts out those players, and it becomes much easier to follow the game.