Uh oh. Its getting serious.
The office of the United States Attorney in Manhattan Preet Bahrara is issuing a
stern warning to Governor Cuomo and all his cronies that a wide ranging criminal investigation is underway and everybody had better a) shut up, and b) lawyer up:
The letter from prosecutors, which was read to The New York Times, says, “We have reason to believe a number of commissioners recently have been contacted about the commission’s work, and some commissioners have been asked to issue public statements characterizing events and facts regarding the commission’s operation.”
“To the extent anyone attempts to influence or tamper with a witness’s recollection of events relevant to our investigation, including the recollection of a commissioner or one of the commission’s employees, we request that you advise our office immediately, as we must consider whether such actions constitute obstruction of justice or tampering with witnesses that violate federal law.”
You can bet that words like federal obstruction and federal witness tampering is sending Cuomo's allies headed for the checkbooks to get those retention bills paid ASAP. The Governor may have the office to defend himself, but his cronies don't.
What sparked the sharp warning was a Federal investigation into the closing down of the Moreland Comission, a investigatory body of prominent attorneys set up by Cuomo. The Commission was set up to weed out Albany's notorious and widespread corruption, but Cuomo quietly closed it down with it having accomplished little to nothing. But then the New York Times reported the Governor and his aides were consistently interfering in the Comission's work, especially when any of it got close to the governor:
With Albany rocked by a seemingly endless barrage of scandals and arrests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo set up a high-powered commission last summer to root out corruption in state politics. It was barely two months old when its investigators, hunting for violations of campaign-finance laws, issued a subpoena to a media-buying firm that had placed millions of dollars’ worth of advertisements for the New York State Democratic Party.
The investigators did not realize that the firm, Buying Time, also counted Mr. Cuomo among its clients, having bought the airtime for his campaign when he ran for governor in 2010.
Word that the subpoena had been served quickly reached Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aide, Lawrence S. Schwartz. He called one of the commission’s three co-chairs, William J. Fitzpatrick, the district attorney in Syracuse.
“This is wrong,” Mr. Schwartz said, according to Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose account was corroborated by three other people told about the call at the time. He said the firm worked for the governor, and issued a simple directive:
“Pull it back.”
The subpoena was swiftly withdrawn. The panel’s chief investigator explained why in an email to the two other co-chairs later that afternoon.
“They apparently produced ads for the governor,” she wrote.
The Times article dropped a bomb on Albany, sending everyone including Cuomo running for cover. For five days he was out of public view despite being in the middle of a re-election campaign. Then, suddenly,
Cuomo and his minions came out publicly defending their work on the Comission, confirming that these public statements from the Governor and commission members was coordinated. Which is obvious and not a big deal. Except they forgot that damage to Cuomo's public image isn't all they had to worry about:
The letter noted “the commissioners and the commission’s employees are important witnesses in this ongoing investigation, and information from those with personal knowledge of facts of the investigation is highly material to that investigation.”
The letter warned that tampering with the recollections of commission members or employees could be a crime, and directed them to preserve any records of “actual or attempted contact” along those lines.
See, its not the corruption that gets you. Its the cover up.