Nation

Gov. Cuomo reacts to sixth sexual harassment accuser

Published

2 years ago

March 9, 2021

Following a sixth woman on Tuesday accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of sexual harassment, the governor later that day said he wasn’t aware of her claim and reiterated that he did not engage in inappropriate behavior and that nobody told him at the time of the alleged incidents that he made them feel uncomfortable.

On top of the sexual harassment allegations, the governor is also facing an investigation for reports that his administration withheld data on coronavirus-related nursing home deaths from federal prosecutors and altered a state Department of Health report on homes to downplay the impact of a March 25 directive saying that nursing homes couldn’t reject patients even if they were COVID-positive.

The Albany Times Union reported the most recent allegation, in which the woman recently told a supervisor in the executive chamber that Cuomo inappropriately touched her late last year at the governor’s mansion.

Asked by a reporter about the latest accuser at Tuesday afternoon’s impromptu press conference over the phone, Cuomo replied, “I’m not aware of any of the claim.” He repeated that he never touched anybody inappropriately nor made any inappropriate advances and that nobody at the time of the alleged harassment told him that he was making them feel uncomfortable.

Mentioning state Attorney General Letitia James (D) this week announcing two investigators to look into the sexual harassment allegations as part of her investigation, Cuomo said that he’s going to “respect that investigation”.

The Times Union reported that the woman, whose identity the newspaper withheld since she could not be reached for comment, is a member of the executive chamber staff and had been summoned to the mansion to do work, according to an official close to the matter.

Moreover, The Times Union reported that Cuomo’s office learned of the allegation over the weekend and it was reported to the governor’s counsel by other employees in the chamber.

The newspaper added that the complaint was forwarded by the governor’s office to Attorney General James’s office.

“All allegations that we learn of directly or indirectly are going promptly to the investigators appointed by the attorney general,” Beth Garvey, acting counselor to the governor, said in a statement to The Times Union on Tuesday.

Another reporter at Tuesday’s conference brought up that in 2018, Cuomo called for the resignation of then-state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman “within three hours” of multiple women accusing him of physical abuse, for which Schneiderman ultimately resigned. “Why doesn’t that same expectation apply to you?” the reporter asked, also inquiring about the governor’s conversations with his daughters about the allegations.

“There’s obviously allegations and then there are allegations, right? And there’s a spectrum of allegations,” Cuomo said. “There’s capital crimes, there’s physical violence—right?—down to more minor allegations.”

As for what he told his daughters, Cuomo said that he told them the same thing he has told the press.

“If you have an allegation, let’s find out what the facts were. You can allege something—it might be true, might be not true—you may have misperceived, there may be other facts,” Cuomo also said. “So let’s get the facts,” he said, saying that’s what the investigation is about.

Another reporter asked Cuomo if he would run for a fourth term in 2022 as he has mentioned before, for which the governor didn’t give a direct answer.

“First, today’s not a day for politics,” Cuomo replied. “I’m focusing on my job. My job is vaccines, getting a budget done, rebuilding New York.”

Secondly, the governor told the reporter, “You don’t know any facts, right? You know allegations, you don’t know facts.” Cuomo reiterated that “real discussion” cannot happen until investigation reveals the facts.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

Nation

Stacy Abrams: ‘No such thing as heartbeat at 6 weeks’, ‘manufactured’ for men to ‘take control of a woman’s body’

Published

1 day ago

September 26, 2022

Sara Carter Staff

“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” Abrams claimed during an event at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta last week. “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”

As National Review reports, even her own man-hating rhetoric is antithetical to the website of Planned Parenthood which said a “very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop” during the fifth to sixth week of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood later amended its website to more closely reflect pro-abortion messaging against heartbeat laws, which ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Now the site says a “part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity” during that time.

Abrams is running for governor in Georgia in a rematch against incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. Abrams lost to Kemp in 2018 by more than 54,000 votes. Additionally, Abrams has never concededto Kemp and has claimed the 2018 election was “stolen from Georgians.”

Abrams words were to suggest that Georgia’s heartbeat law shouldn’t be referred to as the “Fetal Heartbeat Bill.” Her reasoning? Because “that’s medically false, biologically a lie.”

When The View co-host Alyssa Farah asked Abrams “Do you think there should be any legal limits on abortion, such as the third trimester or viability?” Abrams responded: “I believe that abortion is a medical decision, not a political decision…Arbitrary politically-defined timelines are deeply problematic because they ignore the reality of medical and physiological issues.”

“Abortion is a medical decision, not a political decision … The limit should not be made by politicians who don’t understand basic biology or apparently basic morality,” she added.

Kemp is up 6.6 percentage points in RCP polling average over Abrams.