President Joe Biden is calling for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign after Tuesday’s announcement regarding the state’s sexual harassment investigation.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday an investigation found New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and retaliated against one for speaking publicly. According to the 165-page report, Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government workers, breaking state and federal laws and engaging in a pattern of unwanted touching and inappropriate comments.
The video above shows James laying out the allegations and a separate clip of Gov. Cuomo responding to them.
“The independent investigation found that Governor Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, many of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging and by making inappropriate comments,” James said. “The governor and his senior team took actions to retaliate against at least one former employee for coming forward with her story, her truth. And governor Cuomo’s administration fostered a toxic workplace that enabled harassment and created a hostile work environment where staffers did not feel comfortable coming forward with complaints about sexual harassment due to a climate of fear, and given the power, dynamics.”
The report centered on allegations made by 11 women, nine of whom are current and former state employees.
In a Tuesday news conference, lawyers leading the investigation went into more details about the specific allegations. “Some suffered through unwanted touching and grabbing of their most intimate body parts,” Joon Kim said. “Others suffered through repeated offensive, sexually suggestive or gender-based comments. A number of them endured both. None of them welcomed it and all of them found it disturbing, humiliating, uncomfortable and inappropriate.”
“Employees recounted a pattern of similarly offensive comments and conversations, such as the governor repeatedly asking executive assistant number one whether she would cheat on her husband, saying to her, ‘If you were single, the things I would do to you,” Anne Clark said. “Women also describe to us having the governor seek them out, stare intently at them, look them up and down, or gaze at their chest or butt.”
In his response to the news conference, Cuomo denied the allegations. “I want you to know directly from me that I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” Cuomo said. “I am 63 years old. I have lived my entire adult life in public view. That is just not who I am and that’s not who I have ever been.”
Attorneys for the women involved are asking for Cuomo’s resignation.
