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The misdemeanor charge comes after an independent report commissioned by James’s office was released in August, detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment by Cuomo and a hostile work environment in which dissent was not tolerated and speaking up about alleged abuse could result in retaliation.

Cuomo has denied the allegations against him and offered a number of justifications, including that what he considered friendly actions were simply out of step with the political moment. His attorney, Rita Glavin, said in a statement on Friday that Cuomo never assaulted anyone and claimed that the Albany County sheriff, Craig Apple, had acted with political intent.

Confusion over the timing of the complaint gave Glavin some fuel; according to Apple, his office filed the complaint on Thursday morning, not expecting that it would result in a summons being issued the same day.

As a result, the complaint became public on Thursday before Apple could notify Albany County District Attorney David Soares, who didn’t know about the complaint until it was leaked to New York Focus.

Soares said in a statement that he was “surprised to learn today that a criminal complaint was filed in Albany City Court by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office against Andrew Cuomo.” Soares’s office has been pursuing its own investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo.

According to the Albany Times-Union, a summons wasn’t expected until next week, after the sheriff’s office had conferred with Soares and Commisso about moving forward with the case. Commisso’s attorney, Brian Premo, said that she too “was surprised by the turn of events but she has been and will remain a resolute cooperating victim in pursuit of blind justice.”

Apple told the Wall Street Journal that his office routinely files such paperwork without consulting with prosecutors first, and a spokesperson for the New York state court system, Lucian Chalfen, defended Albany City Court Judge Holly Trexler, saying she “handled the filing of the misdemeanor complaint properly.”

Cuomo has repeatedly been accused of harassment and misconduct

In addition to allegations against Cuomo by Commisso and 10 other women, the August report painted an alarming picture of pervasive sexual harassment and retaliation by Cuomo and his aides.

It detailed accusations ranging from Cuomo asking for help finding a girlfriend and saying that he, in his early 60s, would date a woman as young as 22, to unwanted physical contact, like the kind Commisso described when she came forward publicly in August.

The report was effectively the final straw for an already-embattled Cuomo, who was by August facing multiple distinct scandals, including allegations that his administration had deliberately covered up the number of nursing home residents who died of Covid-19 during the pandemic. His public support plummeted, and top aide Melissa DeRosa resigned after the attorney general’s report showed that she had participated in retaliation against at least one accuser.

Sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo began surfacing last year after former aide Lindsay Boylan accused Cuomo of sexually harassing her “for years” and of retaliating against her by releasing confidential personnel files; additional accusations earlier this year added momentum to calls for Cuomo to resign.

Ultimately, Cuomo, facing an accelerating impeachment push backed by state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and the chamber’s Democratic majority, announced he was stepping down just one week after the attorney general’s report was released on August 3.

Despite Cuomo’s resignation, Heastie said in August that the Assembly would continue investigating both the sexual harassment accusations and allegations that the Cuomo administration had deliberately lied about the number of nursing home deaths in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thursday’s criminal complaint is just the latest development in Cuomo’s rapid downfall, and it underscores that the allegations that ended his governorship could still become actionable claims, with real legal teeth.

Cuomo still claims he’s the victim of a political witch hunt

As with previous sexual misconduct allegations, Cuomo’s attorney, Glavin, has argued that the allegations in Thursday’s criminal complaint are false and politically motivated.

“Governor Cuomo has never assaulted anyone, and Sheriff Apple’s motives here are patently improper. Sheriff Apple didn’t even tell the district attorney what he was doing,” Glavin said in a statement. “This is not professional law enforcement; this is politics.”

Specifically, Cuomo’s team has seized on the initial confusion surrounding the charging announcement, which coincided closely with the announcement of James’s gubernatorial campaign, as evidence of political maneuvering on her part and an “abuse of power” by Apple in his “rouge [sic] investigation.”

James announced her gubernatorial campaign on Friday, just one day after the criminal complaint against Cuomo was filed. She will challenge sitting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the former lieutenant governor who took over from Cuomo following his resignation, in the Democratic primary, and other candidates may jump into the Democratic race as well.

James and Cuomo had previously been allies; he endorsed her during her successful 2018 run for attorney general. More recently, however, Cuomo and his team have begun to spin James’s probe into the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo as an abuse of power in pursuit of the governor’s mansion.

Cuomo has tweeted repeatedly in the days since the complaint was made public, with statements by Glavin and Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi both claiming there is no evidence to support the criminal charges.

But multiple district attorney’s offices in New York, as well as state Assembly, have been collecting evidence against Cuomo, and Apple has repeatedly said that the mistimed filing of the complaint doesn’t have any bearing on the seriousness of the charges or the strength of the case. Apple also revealed that he and his team had conducted witness interviews and reviewed copious documents related to the case.

“The case is a solid case, our victim is cooperative, and we’re moving forward,” Apple said.

Bennie: We weren’t investing in the market then, it was just in savings accounts —

Krystal: We started living on very little and saving one income. That’s what allowed us to move to Colorado and buy our first condo. We saw the market was about to get to the point where people couldn’t even buy a house, so —

Bennie: We sold it and bought another house!

Krystal: We realized ownership was extremely valuable, especially in a market that was growing. Then, in this situation, we realized the people who were doing really well were the people who had ownership. It made sense that people who own property, people who have income sources that aren’t tied to employers, are doing okay.

Bennie: We’re in this position right now because of the time between 2008 and 2020. We recognized that we weren’t in the position to absorb dips, so we decided to become proactive. When the pandemic came out of nowhere — and these things always do — we were in a position to look for opportunities. But we wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t spent the period between 2008 and 2020 getting ready.

Krystal: We also used that time to educate ourselves. We watch all of the things about FIRE, we read all of the stories, we share with each other, “Oh, these people make about as much as we make and this is what they do with their money, that’s interesting,” and we talk through it. We read books together, we try to listen to the same books on Audible, because hearing the information and talking through it — “What do you see in this philosophy?” — helps us understand that there are different pathways.

We also both worked in the financial industry for a few years. I was in communications and he was in training/development. Being adjacent to all of that helped us too — being around all of these people who had a lot of money and were talking about it.

Bennie: In 2008 there was a narrative and there was data. We followed the data. How did people end up financially stronger at the end of the recession? We weren’t looking at the 1 percent, we were looking at the upper-middle class. Nobody was talking about them, but I was intrigued — what happened there? What allowed them to do that? That was what was in my head when 2020 happened.

To ensure the two senators support the spending package, progressives are using the bipartisan bill as leverage: In order to pass one, Democrats need to get on board with passing the other as well. Tying the two votes together is also a way to prevent moderate lawmakers from whittling down the spending bill even further. The sooner moderates agree to the latest spending proposal numbers, the sooner they’ll get their vote on infrastructure.

“Congress needs to finish the job and bring both bills to a vote together,” the Congressional Progressive Caucus wrote in a statement explaining their stance. “There is too much at stake for working families and our communities to settle for something that can be later misunderstood, amended, or abandoned altogether.”

Progressive pressure on Thursday secured an infrastructure vote delay, which marked a win for them. It also followed a loss: The latest version of the spending bill, which progressives have announced they’d accept, includes some serious cuts. The plan, released by the White House Thursday, doesn’t include many of their key priorities, including paid family leave and Medicare’s ability to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Despite this, they appear to have now decided to take what they can. They want Manchin and Sinema to do the same and hope to use what leverage they have into making sure they do so.

What progressives hope to gain in the next week

Progressives called for the infrastructure vote delay for two reasons: They wanted specifics about the text of the social spending legislation, and they wanted direct assurances from Manchin and Sinema that they’d vote to pass the social spending bill.

A core issue at play is a lack of trust: Because of how many cuts Manchin and Sinema have already demanded to key Democratic priorities (including reducing prescription drug prices, increases to the corporate tax rate, and eliminating the Clean Energy Performance Program), progressives are wary of their support for the Biden framework. Additionally, neither senator has publicly said they support the framework. That has progressives concerned since Democrats have approved a budget resolution framework before only to have the legislation itself stall.

“I don’t owe them my trust, and they don’t owe me theirs,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) said in an MSNBC interview. “Let us see the vote. … That’s how we know where you stand.”

Progressives’ concerns weren’t assuaged after the release of President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion framework for the legislation. While the CPC publicly endorsed the measure in principle, both Manchin and Sinema issued positive statements about negotiations without any concrete commitments.

“As we work through the text of the legislation, I would hope all of us will continue to deal in good faith and do what is right for the future of the American people,” Manchin said in a statement.

“I look forward to getting this done, expanding economic opportunities and helping everyday families get ahead,” Sinema said in a separate statement.

I’ve lost count of how many interactions with reporters that Sen. Manchin has had today. His unwillingness to just come out and say he supports a WH framework - that was negotiated more directly with him than probably any other lawmaker - seems notable.

— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) October 28, 2021

Progressives want a guarantee that all Democratic senators are actually on board with this bill, and that Manchin or Sinema won’t blow up the framework. They’ve already seen this process play out once: Democrats in both the House and the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution, but both moderates balked at moving forward with that price tag and many of its components.

“We need to have certainty, either through legislative text, through … agreements … that we can trust,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told reporters Thursday.

The caucus’s demand for legislative text has led to results. In an effort to convince progressives to consider a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the House Rules Committee released 1,700 pages of tentative text on Thursday. That text didn’t wind up being enough for a vote because, as with the framework, Manchin and Sinema have yet to agree to it.

Jayapal noted Thursday that progressives would support adding policies back into the legislation that were stripped out of Biden’s framework, like paid family leave and Medicare expansion provisions. She said, however, that progressive support for the framework was not contingent on these additions and that they stood behind the endorsement they’ve made.

Progressives won and lost this week

Thursday marked the second time progressives successfully blocked a vote on infrastructure over concerns about the spending bill. This time, they faced increased pressure from congressional leaders to reverse their position, in order to send Biden off to his coming G20 climate meetings with a legislative win to tout.

But the caucus held firm.

Originally, progressives had identified five broad areas where they wanted investments: the care economy, affordable housing, climate jobs, a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, and reductions to prescription drug prices. The original $3.5 trillion version of the spending bill included many of these issues, but because of Manchin’s and Sinema’s concerns, multiple areas were significantly cut back or dropped entirely.

Biden’s new $1.75 trillion framework ultimately invests heavily in early childhood education and climate but does not include a major provision to help reduce prescription drug prices, a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, or paid family leave.

And areas that survived cuts still saw dramatic reductions in spending. For example, Democrats’ original budget measure contained $450 billion for long-term home care and $332 billion for affordable housing. Biden’s framework, meanwhile, includes $150 billion for the former and $150 billion for the latter.

Sinema has opposed enabling Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, likely killing it. A pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients also isn’t expected to make it into the legislation because of the rules governing the budget reconciliation process and the Senate parliamentarian’s existing ruling advising against its inclusion. And paid family leave has run into opposition from Manchin, who’s worried that the policy would be too burdensome for businesses.

Biden’s framework still has about $100 billion allocated for immigration reform, though it’s unclear whether it will make it past this procedural hurdle. Democrats’ latest pitch to the parliamentarian will focus on issues like the legal visa backlog and a shield from deportation for some unauthorized immigrants, the New York Times reports. Lawmakers are also still finagling some of the details for the bill, leaving the door open for the possible return of some policies.

Progressives back the framework even with the existing omissions. In its current state, it includes several of their demands on child care subsidies, funding for clean energy tax credits, and a Civilian Climate Corps. Additionally, they argue that the talks on the bill wouldn’t have even happened without the pressure they’ve put on Democratic leadership and moderate lawmakers.

“The reality is that while talks around the infrastructure bill lasted months in the Senate, there has only been serious discussion around the specifics of the larger Build Back Better Act in recent weeks, thanks to the Progressive Caucus holding the line and putting both parts of the agenda back on the table,” the CPC said.

Although they are standing their ground on legislation timing, they appear willing to accept the policy concessions that have already been made. “We wanted a $3.5 trillion package, but we understand the reality of the situation,” said Jayapal.

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