(CN) — On track to wrap up their own wide-ranging impeachment investigation of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, members of the state Assembly Judiciary Committee are adopting last week's searing report on sexual harassment allegations as part of the record.
Before the committee closed its doors for an executive session Monday morning, Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Lavine, a Democrat representing a district on Long Island, commended the state attorney general's office for providing the assembly with the “deeply disturbing” findings, as he put it.
“We will review that report, in detail, including the underlying evidence, and consider it together with this committee's own independent investigation,” Lavine said.
The independent investigation commissioned by New York Attorney General Letitia James found that the governor sexually harassed 11 current and former state employees, including a state trooper assigned to his protection detail.
Lavine released a statement Thursday saying the committee is considering potential articles of impeachment against Cuomo. Cuomo has until Friday, Aug. 13, to respond to the committee’s subpoena for materials.
The assembly’s investigation goes beyond allegations of sexual impropriety and is looking into allegations of nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, preferential treatment when it came to Covid-19 testing and the use of public resources to write a book.
While the work of the committee remains confidential, Lavine noted Monday that the committee will disclose its findings “as early as later this month.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Cuomo private counsel Rita Glavin criticized the attorney general's report Friday, saying the investigation was conducted to merely bolster a narrative that was predetermined.
“Instead of acting as independent fact-finders, the investigators acted as prosecutors, judge, and jury,” Glavin said.
Speaking before he moved that the committee go into executive session, Lavine said the committee will allow Cuomo to address the allegations and to provide materials while it reviews the governor’s allegations that the attorney general's investigation was conducted unfairly.
The assembly’s subpoena and closed-door executive session comes as the scandal engulfing Cuomo has brought back-to-back resignations, the latest coming from Roberta Kaplan, who co-founded the organization Time’s Up and led a nonprofit that worked with Cuomo on issues surrounding sexual harassment.
After the attorney general's report last week found that Kaplan had helped discredit one of women who accused Cuomo, Kaplan noted in her resignation letter that that “apparent allies” can later be revealed be abusers.
“We have felt the raw, personal and profound pain of that betrayal," she wrote.
Cuomo aide and strategist Melissa DeRosa announced her resignation Sunday, writing that she was honored grateful to work for the state of New York, and “the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying.”
The state assembly is not the only entity investigating the governor. Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple announced Friday that an executive assistant of Cuomo's brought a criminal complaint, alleging that the governor once reached under her shirt and in another instance rubbed her behind as they posed for a photo.
If Apple’s office could substantiate the criminal complaint, Cuomo could face a misdemeanor charge.
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