Andrew Cuomo Sexually Harassed Even More Women Than Initially Reported

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 over sexual misconduct allegations, harassed even more women than previously reported.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it had settled with New York state over the sexually hostile work environment cultivated under Cuomo.

The Justice Department investigation revealed that Cuomo’s Executive Chamber “(1) subjected female employees to a sexually hostile work environment; (2) tolerated that environment and failed to correct the problem on an agency-wide basis and (3) retaliated against employees who spoke out about the harassment,” according to a press release from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

The department also found that at least 13 female state employees were victims of Cuomo’s harassment. “Governor Cuomo repeatedly subjected these female employees to unwelcome, non-consensual sexual contact; ogling; unwelcome sexual comments; gender-based nicknames; comments on their physical appearances; and/or preferential treatment based on their physical appearances,” the report said.

Previous reports only listed 11 women as victims, not all of whom were state employees. Cuomo has also been accused of harassing women he met at public events.

Since Cuomo left office, the Executive Chamber has carried out a series of reforms under Governor Kathy Hochul to prevent harassment and retaliation. The Justice Department settlement calls for further reforms, including expanding the chamber’s Human Resources Department, creating new channels to externally report and investigate incidents of harassment, and removing the employees who were identified as enabling Cuomo’s harassment. The chamber must also develop and implement anti-harassment and anti-retaliation programs.

Cuomo served as New York’s governor for 10 years, gaining national attention and praise for the way he navigated the Covid-19 pandemic. But everything came crashing down in 2020, when his first accuser came forward. Soon after came revelations that he actually handled the pandemic terribly, as well as a damning 165-page report from New York Attorney General Letitia James detailing Cuomo’s long history of sexual harassment.

Finally, in August 2021, with no major supporters left, Cuomo stepped down.

Representative Lauren Boebert did not receive the warm welcome she was hoping for after switching Colorado districts, with her rivals accusing her of being a “carpetbagger” during the first primary debate.

Boebert, who currently represents the Centennial State’s 3rd district, announced in December that she would run for election in the 4th district in 2024, instead. The decision comes after she was reelected in 2022 by such a narrow margin that the election nearly went to a recount. Her public image has taken a massive battering in recent months, as well.

The far-right congresswoman attempted to defend her decision during the debate Thursday night, saying she made the switch because she wanted a “fresh start” for her family.

“I am here to earn your vote. This is not a coronation,” she said. “The crops may be different in Colorado’s 4th District, but the values are not.”

But her opponents—and potential new constituents—were having none of it. In an informal straw poll, Boebert ranked fifth out of the eight candidates. While on stage, none of her opponents said they would support her if they ended up dropping out.

At one point, state Representative Mike Lynch asked Boebert, “Can you give the definition of ‘carpetbagger’ to me?”

This isn’t the first time Boebert has been labeled an opportunist. When she announced she was switching districts, state Representative Richard Holtorf also slammed Boebert for “carpetbagging.”

“Seat shopping isn’t something the voters look kindly upon,” Holtorf, another of Boebert’s primary opponents, said in a statement. “If you can’t win in your home, you can’t win here.”

Boebert’s victory in the 4th district was never a given. She has been struggling with a public image that casts her as a political extremist, and she received a humiliating dose of national backlash after she and a date were caught on security cameras talking, using their phones, vaping, and groping each other while seeing a performance of Beetlejuice.

But fortunately for her, she’s not alone in having a candidacy marred by controversy. Lynch resigned as state House minority leader earlier this week, after revelations that he was trying to hide a DUI arrest and gun charges from 2022.

Holtorf, who is an anti-abortion politician, recently admitted that he helped a girlfriend pay for an abortion. The procedure helped her “live her best life,” he said.

And another candidate, former state Senator Ted Harvey, launched a “scam PAC” in 2013 that spent 87 percent of the millions it raised on supposed operating expenses. In reality, the organization was set up so its leadership could make massive profits.

Republicans from all over the country are throwing their weight behind Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his standoff with the federal government over the border—but it doesn’t seem like they’ve entirely thought the situation through.

At least 25 Republican governors have declared their support for Abbott, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, the last of whom is flirting with the idea of telling Oklahoma’s National Guard to defy the federal government’s orders if it comes down to it.

Many Republican governors have sent troops down to Texas over the last few months, to help Abbott with what he’s calling his “Operation Lone Star.” But on Thursday, Stitt took things to the next level when questioned by Fox News’s Steve Doocy.

“Have you thought this through? If you send your Oklahoma National Guard down there, and a bunch of other states send them down there, all Joe Biden has to do is federalize all of them. Next thing you know, they’re doing essentially support work for the Border Patrol, who are down there right now just trying to process the invasion of migrants. Your National Guard could be working for Joe Biden,” theorized Doocy.

But Stitt didn’t waver, questioning instead the military’s ultimate allegiance.

“I’ve been on the border, I’ve talked to the border agents. Even the border agents themselves are scratching their heads, but these are good Americans, and they’re trying to obey their boss—but they don’t agree with that policy either,” Stitt began.

“Of course, the National Guard soldiers are Texans and Oklahomans and Tennessee folks. These are just Americans, and they don’t like what’s going on. So you would really be putting our soldiers in a tough, tough situation to protect their states against fentanyl deaths and illegal immigrants and terrorists, in a lot of cases, just to appease some administration that has a political agenda,” the Oklahoma governor continued, completely ignoring the fact that it would be entirely up to the states as to whether or not they put their National Guard in such a precarious situation.

“That’s the only possible explanation,” he added.

The feud between Abbott and Biden escalated on Monday, following a Supreme Court decision that sided 5–4 with Biden, ruling that Texas had overstepped its authority by erecting concertina wire fences along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border, which effectively prevented the U.S. border patrol from doing their job.

Since then, Abbott has declared the influx of immigrants across the border an “invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—and issued a statement on the state’s constitutional right to defend itself. State officials have also continued to erect the fences and claimed Texas’s legal battle over the issue isn’t over.

Senator Josh Hawley said the quiet part out loud on Friday, explicitly tying the GOP’s border security grandstanding to a coordinated effort to hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

“Senator, is this deal dead, effectively?” Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked Hawley Thursday evening.

“I hope so,” Hawley said. “It should be. If it’s not dead yet it should be dead. There is absolutely no reason to agree to policies that would further enable Joe Biden.”

The Senate reached a bipartisan border deal this week, which would include additional funding for border security as well as aid for Ukraine. But the minute Donald Trump criticized the deal, Senate Republicans caved and said they probably won’t pass it.

Hawley’s statement is more proof that Republicans aren’t all that interested in the so-called border crisis. They just want to use it as a political tool in the 2024 election.

Republicans have spent months quietly killing any bipartisan packages related to the border and foreign aid in favor of their own proposition. Also, on Friday the House’s highest member rejected the Senate’s bipartisan deal.

“I wanted to provide a brief update regarding the supplemental and the border, since the Senate appears unable to reach any agreement,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Friday. “If rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”

“Nine months have now passed since we sent our Secure the Border Act (HR 2) to the Senate,” Johnson wrote, referring to an extreme asylum-limiting immigration bill that died in the Senate. “Since the day I became Speaker, I have assured our Senate colleagues the House would not accept any counterproposal if it would not actually solve the problems that have been created by the administration’s subversive policies.”

The wavering deals come part and parcel with a showdown along the U.S.-Mexico border between Texas and the federal government over the placement of concertina wire by Texas’s local authorities along the Rio Grande.

On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared the influx of immigrants across the border an “invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—and issued a statement on the state’s constitutional right to defend itself.

That was just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Joe Biden by declaring that Texas went outside its jurisdiction by erecting makeshift concertina wire fences along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border, effectively preventing the U.S. border patrol from doing their job. Texas has continued building new wire barriers since that ruling.

At least 25 Republican governors have issued their support for Abbott, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.

E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer used Donald Trump’s own words against him on Friday, urging the jury in his defamation trial to make the former president “pay dearly.”

Attorney Roberta Kaplan said during her closing arguments that the trial is not just about stopping Trump from continuing to defame Carroll, but also about showing that no one is above the law. She pointed out that Trump has continued to make false claims about Carroll, despite already owing Carroll $5 million in damages from their previous trial.

Kaplan said they were seeking at least $24 million in damages, more than double the $10 million minimum Carroll sought at the start of the trial. Carroll’s team is now asking for at least $12 million to repair Carroll’s reputation and another $12 million for emotional harm caused.

Kaplan told the jury she would let them determine how much more Trump owes in punitive damages. Kaplan reminded them, though, that Trump had said under oath he is worth billions of dollars.

“It will take an unusually high punitive damages award to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump,” she said.

“Now is the time to make him pay for it. And now is the time to make him pay for it dearly,” Kaplan concluded, borrowing a phrase Trump had previously used to threaten Carroll.

This is the second time that Trump’s own words have come back to bite him in this trial. On Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers played a clip of Trump’s video deposition that he sat for last year, ahead of his bank fraud trial in New York. In the clip, Trump brags that his Doral resort in Miami “could be worth $2.5 billion by itself.” When Kaplan said Trump claimed he was worth billions, she was referring to this testimony.

These boasts could drive up the amount he will ultimately owe Carroll in damages. Legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained on MSNBC last week that the jury “is allowed to consider how much Donald Trump is worth.”

Trump already owes Carroll $5 million in damages after a jury in May unanimously found him liable for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault. It looks like that number is about to go up significantly—and Trump only has himself to blame.