New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is digging himself deeper into his own hole after the investigation into multiple sexual harassment and assault allegations against him released information declaring that several more women came forward to share similar experiences to those who have spoken publicly on his actions.
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In response, Cuomo has made the bizarre move of putting out an 85-page response that is 26 pages of text and 59 pages of images, mostly of politicians hugging each other and their constituents, as though he was only accused of friendly hugs.
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In reality, Cuomo has been accused of creating a toxic work environment that worked constantly to silence dissent and accusations of wrongdoing by the governor, even as he manipulated and assaulted multiple women and pretended that he was just being a friendly guy. This is a classic defense going back centuries that everyone knows is a joke but powerful men somehow still get to employ in order to maintain their power anyway.
Many of the photos are also of people with similar levels of power hugging who would likely not feel any kind of social or work pressure to accept “hugs” or other touching like they would from those with the power to fire them and potentially destroy their careers. Other images were screenshots of tweets from women praising him, as though this could ever erase the harm done.
The actual text of the document denies any wrongdoing, calls his alleged harassment of multiple women “unremarkable,” and claims that the investigation is “biased.”
In terms of sexual harassment alone, the investigation’s findings accuse the governor of creating a hostile work environment for women that included constant gendered comments from him as well as “frequent flirtations.”
“We also conclude that the Executive Chamber’s culture — one filled with fear and intimidation, while at the same time normalizing the Governor’s frequent flirtations and gender-based comments — contributed to the conditions that allowed the sexual harassment to occur and persist,” the report headed by Attorney General Letitia James says. “That culture also influenced the improper and inadequate ways in which the Executive Chamber has responded to allegations of harassment.”
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In addition to the document, Cuomo produced a whole slideshow of him kissing people and grabbing their faces that will make many U.S. residents not from old-world Italy at least mildly uncomfortable just to view.
According to James, Cuomo violated multiple federal and state laws with his behavior. Additionally, the investigation “found his denials to lack credibility and to be inconsistent with the weight of evidence obtained during our investigation.”
Multiple unnamed women in the report directly accuse Cuomo of full sexual assault, with one saying he groped her during one of his famous “hugs.” To make things even worse for the governor, he is also accused in the report of retaliating against women who came forward with their allegations, which is also illegal. They found that he and his office “actively engaged in an effort to discredit” former aide Lindsey Boylan, “including by disseminating to the press confidential internal documents that painted her in a negative light.”
In classic form, Twitter users who believe women were soon able to dig up an old tweet from 2013 by Cuomo that calls for zero tolerance when it comes to sexual harassment that aged like fine raw meat left in the glove compartment.
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*First Published: August 3, 2021, 1:44 pm
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