New York assembly: If Cuomo doesn’t resign, we’ll impeach

State Assembly Member Kenny Burgos, (D) New York: “I mean, the mood has been for quite some time and even I would say even back to March, that when these allegations came out, we found many of the credible and many of my colleagues did not see the governor fit to serve as governor anymore. I think now with the AG report, it’s such a damning report and really just clean cut and clear, even my colleagues who were on the fence have now basically come to the agreement that he’s no longer fit to serve as governor.”

“So we still have the investigation going. Our investigation is a bit broader than the AG’s investigation, so ours includes not only the sexual harassment, but looking into issues such as the nursing home data scandal, looking into issues such as his five million dollar book deal, even issues with the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge and its actual integrity of the bridge.”

“Yeah, so it’s 107 of us, right, in the majority conference, so the conversation is really to try and speed this up as fast as possible because this is an issue we do not want to drag out. Unfortunately, I don’t have a timeline on what the investigation will take. But we don’t need the investigation to file articles of impeachment. That really does come down to the decision of the majority of Democrats and the speaker.”

“I would say you need to leave with grace, you know, I really do hope and pray that he resigns. I think would be a much better situation for him, for us in the legislature.  Right now, we really can’t afford to have any more distractions in terms of legislatiing. We’re still dealing with COVID-19 pandemic, I still have people who are in need of rental assistance, I hve people who are food insecure. That a lot of issues that we have to deal with on a daily basis to now have to deal with an impeachment process would just be more distracting than anything.”

“The majority of emails that I received, some from in district, some from which they just have my emails and pretty much all been against the governor, most of the calls to impeach him, most of them telling me to do my job and file the articles of impeachment. So it seems to be a pretty, pretty consistent tone here that they’re pretty much fed up.”

“So at this point, Andrew Cuomo is standing on a ship of one: Andrew Cuomo.  So I don’t know how you can really recover from this, especially with this timeline, especially with the assembly essentially holds your fate in their hands and there’s no vote of confidence in him.”

Reporter question: “If the governor (Andrew Cuomo) refuses to resign, does the president want to see him impeached and removed from office?”

Jen Psaki, White House press secretary: “The president made clear yesterday that Governor Cuomo should resign. And we’ve, I believe we should start with that. There’s obviously a process that’s going to proceed and leaders in New York spoke to that yesterday. We’ll leave it to them to speak to that, but the president believes Governor Cuomo should do the right thing, resign and leave space for future leadership in New York.”

Reporter question: “In this period while Governor Cuomo is still in office, does the president have confidence in him leading New York state’s response to the pandemic?”

Jen Psaki, White House press secretary: “Well, I think, again, the president made clear because of the abhorrent allegations that were made public yesterday, that it is time for for Governor Cuomo to resign. At the same time, we do not want the people of New York to be impacted in a negative way as they’re working to fight COVID. And we’re going to continue to work with the administration in New York, with leaders in New York to continue to fight COVID. That will continue, and obviously, if leadership changes in the state, we will work with with a different leader.”

Reporter question: “Why not pick up the phone and ask him to resign at this point?”

Jen Psaki, White House press secretary: “I think the president was pretty clear publicly, he asked him to resign yesterday.”