A consistent response having to do with the sexual misconduct allegations against New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo has been to stress that there is an investigation. That's it. Reporter Gwynne Hogan of WNYC tweeted she was "muted immediately" for asking about reporting from the New York Times indicating that Gov. Cuomo was involved in a letter from December attempting to discredit his first accuser, Lindsey Boylan.
Got muted immediately after asking why @NYGovCuomo leaked Boylan's personnel records and reportedly circulated a letter saying she was backed by Trump supporters, @JonCampbellGAN did you get muted? Governors office had said they would start allowing us follow up questions...
— Gwynne Hogan (@GwynneFitz) March 17, 2021
USA Today New York Reporter, Jon Campbell, tweeted out what question he was going to ask.
It was going to be something along the lines of: Do you believe there is any instance where it is appropriate for a boss to ask their subordinate questions of that sort? https://t.co/Tm9OMDA4A9
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) March 17, 2021
Mediaite reported about the letter:
Cuomo responded by saying, “Miss Boylan is one of the issues that is going to be reviewed by the Assembly and the attorney general, and I want them to do their review and let them determine the facts, and then we’ll take it from there.”
“You need to know facts,” the governor continued. “Now, we could either debate facts in the media or we could let fact-finders find facts, and then have an intelligent conversation on an agreed-to set of facts, rather than have competing facts.”
The New York Times reporting in question from Maggie Haberman and Jesse McKinley detailed how Gov. Cuomo responded to Boylan accusing him over Twitter of sexual harassment. According to Haberman and McKinley, the letter came about "days after" and:
was a full-on attack on Ms. Boylan’s credibility, suggesting that her accusation was premeditated and politically motivated. It disclosed personnel complaints filed against her and attempted to link her to supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.
...
The initial idea, according to three people with direct knowledge of the events, was to have former Cuomo aides — especially women — sign their names to the letter and circulate it fairly widely.
Particularly noteworthy is what is said in the reporting about the motivation of the Cuomo administration, Cuomo himself, and how those who would have been involved with the letter knew of and spoke of an "anger" to do with the governor. Emphasis is added:
It is not clear how many people were asked to sign the letter, but two former officials — speaking on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to anger Mr. Cuomo, New York’s Democratic governor — decided that they did not want their names on it. The letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was never released. Ms. Boylan did not immediately elaborate or follow up on her Twitter posts in December, allowing her accusations to fade, along with the urgency of the effort to discredit her. Still, the letter shows that the Cuomo administration was poised to quickly and aggressively undercut Ms. Boylan, a Democrat who is running for Manhattan borough president.
Boylan detailed her allegations further in a February 24 post for Medium, "My story of working with Governor Cuomo."
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