Trust? At least one US Attorney doesn't much trust Andrew Cuomo, nor should he.
So NY Lieberdem Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a former prosecutor, swept into office promising to clean up rank corruption in his state's political establishment. He even set up a commission to tackle the problem.
But it was all for show.
Mr. Cuomo created the panel, the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, in July, with great fanfare and a broad mandate to restore public trust in government. But watchdog groups raised concerns about the panel’s credibility after reports about interference by the governor’s office, which leaned on the commission to limit the scope of its investigations, influence which subpoenas it would issue, and in some cases, stop the commission from issuing subpoenas to groups with ties to Mr. Cuomo.
Then, when all that interference wasn't good enough, Cuomo simply shut the commission down two weeks ago. Quite convenient, huh?
Fortunately, the US District Attorney in Manhattan has commandered the commission's work:
Less than two weeks after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly shut down a commission he had formed to investigate political corruption in New York State, the United States attorney in Manhattan is sharply questioning the governor’s decision and is taking possession of all of the panel’s case files, according to letters sent to the commission’s members on April 3 and again on Wednesday afternoon.
He may not find much, because Cuomo's people on the commission did everything they could to ensure their kabuki didn't actually accomplish anything:
Staff members of the panel, several said, regularly deleted emails and often communicated with BlackBerry messages not recorded on government servers.
For all of Joe Lieberman's flaws, and they were legion, I don't recall "corruption" being one of them. The guy was an asshole, but he was an honest asshole. The same can't obviously be said about Cuomo.