What Exactly Is Andrew Cuomo Guilty Of?

In the 165-page report issued last week by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, there is a curious incongruity that few seem to have noticed in their furor to denounce Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (How many journalists bothered to read the report before commenting, one wonders?) While press accounts have near-uniformly declared the allegations set forth to be supremely “damning,” a closer examination of the report itself, as well as the peculiar surrounding details, leaves room for a bit more ambiguity.

The report concludes that “under the totality of the circumstances,” Cuomo’s conduct “created a hostile work environment” and therefore constituted a violation—or multiple violations—of the law. “Even the Governor’s less overtly sexual comments that were nonetheless gender-based” contributed to this allegedly unlawful dynamic, the report opines.

“Opines” is an operative word here. Despite accusations leveled by James at her TV press conference that Cuomo “violated federal and state law,” no charges of any kind were brought against the governor, which makes this episode an extreme rarity in the annals of American due process. “For a prosecutor to say the things she did ... would be a violation of the code of ethics,” Bennett Gershman, a law professor at Pace University, told me. “In New York state, I can’t think of another situation where an attorney general went so far,” he added. “A lot of her statements were quite inflammatory, and highly prejudicial.”