New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Sunday said he will not resign from his position. Multiple legislators and editorial boards have called for Cuomo's resignation as allegations of sexual harassment continue to climb. As of now, five women have said the New York governor sexually harassed them. Three of those women are former staffers. The latest allegation came to light Saturday night.
“I’m not going to resign because of allegations,” Cuomo told reporters on a conference call, WCBS reported.
“The premise of resigning because of allegations is actually anti-democratic,” he said. “And we’ve always done the exact opposite. You know, the system is based on due process and the credibility of the allegation. Anybody has the ability to make an allegation in democracy, and that’s great, but it’s in the credibility of the allegation.”
Attorney General Letitia James (D) and New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFior will conduct the investigation into the allegations lobbed against Cuomo. The governor said to wait on their findings before demanding his resignation.
“There is no way I resign,” the governor added. “Let’s do the attorney general investigation. Let’s do the findings and then we go from there. But I’m not going to be distracted by this either. We have to get a budget done in three weeks. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of work to do for this state. This is not about me and accusations about me. The attorney general can handle that. This is about doing the people’s business and this next six months I believe will determine the future trajectory for New York state.”
The governor claimed legislators who are calling for his resignation "want to play politics, that’s what they do."