ALBANY, N.Y. — Andrew Cuomo really wants to throw the book at the state’s ethics panel over its decision to revoke approval of his $5.1 million pandemic memoir deal.
The former governor’s legal team issued a request Wednesday calling on the Joint Commission on Public Ethics to preserve any documents related to its December decision ordering Cuomo to relinquish profits following reports that staffers assisted in writing and promoting the tome.
Cuomo attorney Jim McGuire’s request to preserve evidence, a move typically made before a lawsuit is filed, accuses the ethics watchdog created by Cuomo during his first term in office of playing politics.
“JCOPE’s actions support, at the very least, the reasonable conclusion that it has acted for improper political reasons,” McGuire wrote to the commission.
Cuomo resigned last August following the release of a bombshell report from Attorney General Letitia James’ office detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him. James’ office is also investigating the disgraced governor’s book deal, signed at the height of the COVID crisis.
Cuomo has insisted that any work by staffers or aides on the book was strictly done on a voluntary basis.
However, some staffers told investigators working on a since-scuttled Assembly impeachment probe that they felt the tasks they were assigned when it came to the book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” were not optional.
JCOPE commissioners’ vote to revoke approval came after a staffer initially gave Cuomo the green light to pen the book, published by Penguin Random House imprint Crown, back in 2020.
Despite the beleaguered ethics panel’s attempt to claw back Cuomo’s profits, including donated funds and monies set aside in a trust for his three daughters, more steps are legally required before the state would get involved in trying to collect the money.
McGuire said JCOPE’s reversal and attempt to force Cuomo to turn over the cash are “flagrantly in excess of its jurisdiction, are based on determinations it has made in violation of lawful procedure, and are arbitrary and capricious.”
A JCOPE spokesman did not return a request for comment.
———
