New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his legmen didn’t just leak details from Lindsey Boylan’s personnel jacket to destroy her credibility after she accused the disgraced chief executive of sexually harassing her.
He and his loyalists drafted an attack letter they wanted former employees to sign, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The letter never went anywhere. But it shows once again what Cuomo and his loyal protectorate were prepared to do. And the Times’s report makes clear they knew more accusations were coming.
Twitter Revelation
Boylan let the world know about Cuomo’s hands-on approach to governing in a Twitter thread on December 13.
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“Yes, @NYGovCuomo sexually harassed me for years,” Boylan wrote:
Many saw it, and watched.
I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks. Or would it be both in the same conversation? This was the way for years.
Cuomo’s crew went to DefCon 1 right away, the Times reported:
People tied to the governor started circulating an open letter that they hoped former staff members would sign.
The letter was a full-on attack on Ms. Boylan’s credibility, suggesting that her accusation was premeditated and politically motivated. It disclosed personnel complaints filed against her and attempted to link her to supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.
“Weaponizing a claim of sexual harassment for personal political gain or to achieve notoriety cannot be tolerated,” the letter concluded. “False claims demean the veracity of credible claims.”
Cuomo and his torpedoes wanted former employees, “especially women,” to sign the hit piece, which the governor was “involved in creating.”
As well, the Times reported, “current aides to the governor emailed at least one draft to a group of former advisers. From there, it circulated to current and former top aides to the governor.”
The letter was never released, but it “shows that the Cuomo administration was poised to quickly and aggressively undercut” the candidate for Manhattan Borough president.
Though the Times did not divulge the letter’s attacks, the newspaper did disclose that the maleficent missive “included Ms. Boylan’s text exchanges with some of Mr. Cuomo’s senior advisers last year, in an effort to suggest that she was malicious.”
The letter accused Boylan of seeking “political retribution” and that her campaign consultant was a Cuomo foe. It even said Boylan was “supported by lawyers and financial backers of Donald Trump: an active opponent of the governor.”
The initial plan for a letter about Ms. Boylan illustrated how the Cuomo administration was prepared to launch a broader effort to damage her credibility.
The approach appeared consistent with a culture of intimidation from the governor’s office that former aides have described, and Ms. Boylan was clearly a target.
Last week, the Times noted, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cuomo’s frantic aides callled at least half a dozen former employees after Boylan went public on Twitter. One of the aides who received a call was Ana Liss, who accused Cuomo of kissing her.
The aides thought Cuomo’s legmen wanted to intimidate them.
Boylan Only One
Significantly, Cuomo’s crew knew at least one more woman would step forward, the newspaper reported:
Six months earlier, Charlotte Bennett, an executive assistant and senior briefer, had told two senior officials in the governor’s office that he had harassed her, asking her probing personal questions including whether she was monogamous and whether she slept with older men.
Bennett told her story to the Times last month.
Cuomo, she said, discussed a sexual assault she suffered, told her that he was fine with dating any woman over 22, and asked if she had sex with older men. Bennett told Norah O’Donnell of CBS that Cuomo “terrified” her.
Cuomo is 63.
Seven women have accused him, including an employee at the executive mansion in Albany who says that Cuomo grabbed her breast. The latest is a former statehouse reporter.
