NY Assembly meets to impeach Cuomo as resignations start to pile up

The New York State Assembly met to discuss possible impeachment proceedings for Governor Andrew Cuomo Monday. Meanwhile, two major figures connected to the Cuomo sexual harassment report  resign, and a Cuomo accuser shared her story on national television.

The video above shows Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Lavine speaking before the meeting began. The committee discussed how to wrap up an ongoing probe of Cuomo’s conduct. Committee members also addressed Cuomo’s use of staff to help with his $5 million book deal, and his administration’s decision to withhold full statistics on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes from the public.

It comes less than a day after one of Cuomo’s top aides, Melissa DeRosa, resigned late Sunday. She didn’t give a more specific reason for her resignation. However, she added “personally, the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying.”

DeRosa had been with the Cuomo administration since 2013 and received the title “secretary to the governor” in 2017. She was mentioned 187 times in the report, and described as a central figure in his office’s retaliation against Lindsey Boyland, who was the first accuser to speak out publicly. The administration released internal memos showing Boylan had also been the subject of complaints about toxic workplace behavior.

Monday morning, the head of “Time’s Up”, an organization fighting gender-based discrimination, resigned. Roberta Kaplan cited her work counseling the Cuomo administration last winter and her more recent legal work representing DeRosa as reasons for her resignation.

In addition, the Human Rights Campaign is launching an internal investigation over organization leader Alphonso David’s inclusion in the report. David is a former legal counsel for Cuomo.

Both David and Kaplan consulted the Cuomo administration when Boylan accused him of harassment. His administration drafted a letter attacking her credibility and motives with the intent of releasing it publicly. Both Kaplan and David agreed to review the letter.

According to last week’s report, Kaplan told the administration that with some adjustments, it would be fine to send out. David declined to sign the letter, but said he would reach out to other people to see if they would. The letter was never sent.

One of the other accusers, Brittany Commisso, detailed her interactions with Cuomo in a joint interview with CBS and The Times Union of Albany that aired Monday. “I was afraid that if I had to come forward and revealed my name, that the governor and his enablers, I like to call them, would viciously attack me, would smear my name, as I had seen and heard them do before to people,” Commisso said.

In the interview, she said he groped her for the first time on New Years Eve 2019 when the governor suggested the two take a selfie together.

“He was to my left. I was on the right. With my right hand, I took the selfie,” Commisso said. “I then felt while taking the selfie, his hand go down my back onto my butt, and he started rubbing it. Not sliding it. Not, you know, quickly brushing over it — rubbing my butt.”

Commisso said Cuomo groped her a second time at the governor’s mansion in November 2020.

After shutting the door, “He came back to me and that’s when he put his hand up my blouse and cupped my breast over my bra,” she said. “I exactly remember looking down, seeing his hand, which is a large hand, thinking to myself, ‘Oh, my God. This is happening.’”

Commisso said the attention that Cuomo gave her was not a normal friendliness, as the governor has characterized it.

“Maybe to him, he thought this was normal. But to me and the other women that he did this to, it was not normal. It was not welcomed and it was certainly not consensual,” she said.