The people running our government and fronting Biden had a great day Tuesday. In one fell swoop, with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case—not even charges, merely a case—against Governor Andrew Cuomo for prolific, ridiculous sexual harassment, they solved a great many of the Biden Administration’s looming problems: political, personnel, and criminal. Indeed, there was lots of winning for the shadowy cabal.
Despite his pugnaciousness and tenacity, these harassment charges, most of which will not pass legal muster should trials ensue, are still likely to push Cuomo from office, whether by resignation or impeachment. As of this writing, a majority of Democratic state legislators have announced support for impeachment, with hearings to begin at the end of August. For Democrats, that beats the alternatives.
The national outrage at Cuomo’s handsiness and bullying and the expiation of sin to follow as he leaves the scene, has made it unlikely that Cuomo will ever face justice for the deliberate murder of roughly 15,000 seniors in New York nursing homes. That is a far more serious charge. Were that case to be unraveled, with evidence, in a court of law, or even in a real newspaper, many people besides Cuomo would be in deep trouble. Particularly hard hit would be those for whom he acted in pursuit of unseating Donald Trump in the coming election. So that could not be allowed to happen.
Why do I think those deaths of elderly people in nursing homes were deliberate, and not just incompetence or lack of preparedness, as he has argued? Timing. In March 2020, as COVID became an issue, the biggest problem associated with it was the lines at New York City-funded hospitals, and the start of a rising death toll. But most states still had zero or only a handful of cases. There were far too few deaths to justify shutting down businesses or schools.
To use the crisis as a means to unseat Donald Trump, as the Democrats were hell-bent on doing, required drama, and action. Then, as the first rounds of COVID patients began emerging from crowded hospitals, recovering but still clearly contagious, Cuomo instituted the unprecedented requirement that they be sent to (state-funded) nursing homes “to recover.”
Cuomo was warned about the likely consequences of doing this by, among others, worried nursing homeowners, who knew that if they had to house still contagious, recovering patients, COVID would spread like wildfire through their facilities. And, he had good alternatives: President Trump had sent the Naval hospital ship USS Comfort, which remained empty throughout the pandemic, as did the Javits Center, as the elderly and vulnerable were forced to share rooms with known COVID carriers. It is hard to imagine that this was an accident. Even as the death toll began skyrocketing, Cuomo refused to reconsider the policy.
Four other Democratic governors followed suit, using the same tactic, and thousands more in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and California subsequently died, allowing Democrats to ramp up the fear that justified a year-long shutdown of work, schools, the economy, and allowed for election practices that enabled mass cheating.
Did Cuomo come up with this evil himself? That seems doubtful. One presumes that conversations took place, directions were given, and immunity was promised. That’s my guess.
In Albany, the coverup kicked in in real-time. As the New York Times reported, “Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aides had rewritten a state Health Department report on nursing home fatalities to hide the number of actual deaths, just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write his book.”
Interestingly, Attorney General James saw something criminal, too. Recall that she was about to make a case against Cuomo for the nursing home deaths this past winter— then stopped suddenly, and turned to the lesser crime of sexual harassment.
The “ignore/deny” strategy worked. Late on the afternoon of Friday, July 24, the Biden Justice Department announced that it would not be bringing any charges in the nursing home deaths cases in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan or California. Naturally, Cuomo hailed this as a victory, against “political charges.” The story was officially buried.
But, you are thinking, the harassment charges are so bad that even President Biden called for his resignation. How is this a win?
Despicable as his evident harassment of employees was, very little of it actually will meet legal standards for criminal conviction. Unlike, say, the Harvey Weinstein case, there were no rapes, no quid pro quos, and no one was fired for refusing. Groping and toxic comments poisoning the workplace? Terrible, but . . . nothing like what Tara Reade reported.
Cuomo will resign —or the extremely left-wing state legislature will impeach him. The woke, increasingly black-centric New York Democratic Party wants Attorney General Letitia James, a total progressive, to be the gubernatorial nominee. And hey, we already have many black, female mayors running big cities with escalated mayhem and murder. Time for a governor.
(If the New York state GOP can’t capitalize on this, their obscurity is deserved.)
As if he knew this was coming, Cuomo secured his post-term book deal early. He banked the $5 million payoff for a book no one bought, about “leadership” during the pandemic, written by employees on the public payroll.
Of course, back then—a year ago, in the anxious boredom of the first wave of lockdown—newly single, aging Andrew, 63, with his visible nipple rings, was a sexual icon. Male and female celebrities prattled stupidly on air about “Cuomosexuality” (wink, wink). What a great candidate for president, the narrative went. In retrospect, it’s ironic—nay, hilarious—that New York liberals raved about the sexuality of a powerful, wealthy man who just could not get laid, no matter whom he pursued.
All gone. Biden and the cabal have just cleared the stage of their most compelling competition in 2024. (That need was not anticipated back when everyone expected Biden to die early, so Kamala could take over. But Kamala is such a disaster that even they see she has to go.)
Meanwhile, for a moment we all get to pretend we’re back in a normal world, where powerful older men harass younger women, in actual workplaces. We can summon gratifying high dudgeon in amusing arguments, without thinking about the needless deaths, trashed economy, censorship, China’s control of our political class, and the end of liberty. So, lots of winning.