“I do it with everyone,” Cuomo says in the statement. The video includes a montage of photographs of him hugging people, holding their heads in his hands and kissing them on the cheek.Ĭuomo denies sexual harassment claims in New York attorney general report – video “I now understand there are generational or cultural perspectives that frankly I hadn’t fully appreciated,” Cuomo said in a filmed statement posted shortly after the attorney general’s report was released. He has responded to the accounts of his 11 accusers with a potpourri of outright denial, appeals to failing memory, suggestions that the women had “misunderstood” his actions, and darker insinuations that they and the investigators were motivated by political or other animosity towards him. Much of Cuomo’s self-defense falls squarely into the standard playbook of powerful men accused of sexual misconduct when their back is against the wall. “He has lost credibility, and so is trying to undermine the credibility of everybody else.” Since the New York attorney general, Letitia James, released her 168-page report on Tuesday with its central finding that Cuomo violated federal and state sexual harassment laws, the governor has embarked on a “masterclass in gaslighting”, Biaggi said. “The next day he engaged in gender-based discrimination.” “The day before he was touting himself as someone who cares about protections for women against gender-based discrimination,” Biaggi told the Guardian. Biaggi, a Democratic state senator, has a special stake in this narrative as she co-sponsored the anti-harassment bill that Cuomo signed into law (though he pointedly declined to invite her to the ceremony, which she believes was out of spite following her previous criticism of him). “It was perverse, it shocks the conscience,” said Alessandra Biaggi, referring to Trooper #1’s experiences in the car. How could a leading Democratic politician who presented himself as the standard-bearer of workplace equality and dignity have created what the AG’s report found was a “hostile work environment for women” in which he sexually harassed several current and former employees over years?Īnd how could he now be waging a one-man battle to discredit the 11 women – Trooper #1 among them – who had the courage to come forward to tell their stories against him? On another occasion he ran the palm of his hand across her stomach, making her feel “completely violated”.īut coming a single day after he had signed the signature sexual harassment bill into law, the encounter in the car highlighted a question at the heart of the unfolding Cuomo affair. The incident was one of the milder episodes of what Trooper #1 called Cuomo’s “flirtatious” and “creepy” behavior. She took that as an order to remain quiet. When they arrived at the destination, Trooper #1 was told by a senior officer that what she had just endured “stays in the truck”. Cuomo pressed on: “Why do you wear such dark colors?” Stunned, and hoping to change the subject, she replied that she would have nowhere to put her gun. “Why don’t you wear a dress?” he asked her. He struck up a conversation with the officer, who is anonymously identified in this week’s explosive report from the New York attorney general into Cuomo’s violations of anti-discrimination laws as “Trooper #1”. The next day, 13 August, the governor was being driven to an event by a state police officer who he had handpicked to be part of his security detail even though she lacked the requisite experience. “Let’s honor the women who have had the courage to come forward to tell their stories – and let’s actually change things.” “Let’s honor all the women who have endured this humiliation,” he said.
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