PIERS MORGAN: When even your most devoted rats are deserting your sinking stinking sleaze ship, Governor Cuomo – it’s time to walk the plank

‘The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite,’ said Tennessee Williams.

The great American playwright wasn’t talking specifically about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – but he might as well have been.

Because, to borrow Olympic parlance as the Tokyo Games end, the fork-tongued, disingenuous, duplicitous, charlatan sleazeball has soared to Gold-medal levels of lying and hypocrisy.

The fact Cuomo hasn’t yet resigned following a tidal wave of scandal that would have destroyed most other politicians months ago is mind-bogglingly baffling unless you understand the true scale of his quite staggeringly gigantic ego.

This is a guy who you just know looks in the mirror each morning, gives himself a cheeky self-congratulatory wink and exclaims: ‘LOOKING HOT, BRO!’

Yet what he should be saying to himself is this: ‘TIME TO GO, BRO!’

The fact Cuomo hasn’t yet resigned following a tidal wave of scandal that would have destroyed most other politicians months ago is mind-bogglingly baffling unless you understand the true scale of his quite staggeringly gigantic ego

I think Cuomo should have gone after it emerged that he ordered nursing homes to accept thousands of potentially COVID-positive patients when they were discharged from hospital during the first wave of coronavirus in March last year. The shameful truth only emerged in February when Melissa DeRosa, the Secretary to the Governor and his right-hand woman, privately apologised to Democratic lawmakers for rejecting a legislative request last August to report an accurate death toll – and confessed ‘we froze’ because they were terrified the true numbers would ‘be used against us’ by federal prosecutors

I think Cuomo should have gone after it emerged that he ordered nursing homes to accept thousands of potentially COVID-positive patients when they were discharged from hospital during the first wave of coronavirus in March last year, without requiring the residents to test negative for the virus first – thus condemning countless old, vulnerable people to needless death.

As he accepted Emmys for his heroic handling of the pandemic, wrote self-congratulatory books about his own magnificent leadership, and basked in the simpering sycophantic adulation of liberal celebrities and news anchors including his own brother Chris at CNN, Cuomo persistently lied about the number of people that were sent back to nursing homes, and the number of nursing home residents who died from the virus.

The shameful truth only emerged in February when Melissa DeRosa, the Secretary to the Governor and his right-hand woman, privately apologised to Democratic lawmakers for rejecting a legislative request last August to report an accurate death toll – and confessed ‘we froze’ because they were terrified the true numbers would ‘be used against us’ by federal prosecutors.

‘We were in a position,’ DeRosa said, ‘where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.’

In other words, they lied to save their slippery skins from proper accountability and to preserve Cuomo’s cracked halo.

That halo then began to disintegrate when 11 women came forward to make claims of sexual misconduct against the Governor, and New York attorney general Letitia James announced an investigation.

Cuomo’s halo began to disintegrate when 11 women came forward to make claims of sexual misconduct against the Governor, and New York attorney general Letitia James announced an investigation. Pictured: Cuomo with Brittany Commisso who has laid a criminal complaint against the governor after he groped her at his mansion

The extensive and incredibly detailed report from New York AG Letitia James left no room for doubt: Cuomo’s a relentless sex pest at best, and at worst, a criminal sexual predator. And he was doing some of this stuff at the very same time as he was publicly positioning himself as a heroic #MeToo advocate to women. Pictured: Cuomo with accuser Brittany Commisso

After he was first engulfed with the allegations of inappropriate behaviour and harassment, Cuomo urged us all to exercise patience before passing ‘anti-democratic’ judgement.

‘I ask the people of this state to wait for the facts from the attorney general’s report before forming an opinion,’ he declared, with the clear implication from his super-confident tone that he would be completely exonerated.

So, we waited until the report came in last week and it turned out to be far worse than even Cuomo’s most ardent critics could have hoped for.

‘Upon completion of our independent investigation into allegations of sexual harassment brought against Governor Andrew Cuomo and the surrounding circumstances,’ read AG James’s conclusion, ‘we have reached the conclusion that the Governor sexually harassed a number of State employees through unwelcome and unwanted touching, as well as by making numerous offensive and sexually suggestive comments. We find that such conduct was part of a pattern of behavior that extended to his interactions with others outside of State government.’

The extensive and incredibly detailed report left no room for doubt: Cuomo’s a relentless sex pest at best, and at worst, a criminal sexual predator.

And he was doing some of this stuff at the very same time as he was publicly positioning himself as a heroic #MeToo advocate to women.

In August 2019 Andrew Cuomo, held a glitzy ball to mark the signing of new laws designed to protect women from predatory men in the workplace.

‘Let’s honor all the women who have endured this humiliation,’ he said ‘let’s honor the women who have had the courage to come forward to tell their stories – and let’s actually change things.’

Yet the very next day, AG James’s report reveals, a leering Cuomo asked a female member of his security detail – who he personally chose despite her lack of experience for the job – why she wasn’t wearing a dress as they drove together in a car.

When they arrived at the destination, Trooper #1 was told by a senior officer that what happened ‘stays in the truck’.

The sexist incident was of many that Trooper #1 endured from what she described as Cuomo’s ‘flirtatious’ and ‘creepy’ behavior. Another time, he ran his hand across her stomach, making her feel ‘completely violated.’

However, when the report was published, Cuomo went on defensive attack, denying all the claims and blaming ‘generational or cultural perspectives’ for his conduct.

In other words, he didn’t ‘honor all the women who have endured this humiliation’ and nor did he ‘honor the women who have had the courage to come forward to tell their stories.’

By denying their claims, he effectively branded them all liars, which of course merely serves to confirm him as a hypocrite of epic proportions.

In the aftermath of the report and his appallingly tone-dead response to it, the most senior members of his own Democratic party, from President Biden and House Speaker Pelosi to New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have all called for him to quit.

Yet still Cuomo clings onto power like a desperate political barnacle, even as his most devoted aides jump ship.

Last night, in what may well turn out to be a pivotal moment in this unedifying saga, Melissa DeRosa dramatically resigned.

Few tears will be shed for the woman dubbed ‘Cruella DeRosa’ by victims of her own nasty, bullying tactics as Cuomo’s chief of staff.

Former Executive Chamber colleagues ripped her as a ‘ruthless, heartless, evil human being’ with one telling the New York Post she ‘doesn’t have time for niceties’ and ‘will rip your heart out in order to get what she wants’.

The source added that she was ‘the worst person I have ever worked for in my entire professional career. She doesn’t have time to get to know you as a person. You are either an individual who gets something done for her — or you’re in her way.’

Cuomo himself is said to have described her as a ‘mean girl’, and she was also heavily criticised in AG James’s report for working hard to discredit Cuomo’s victims.

But nothing becomes DeRosa so much as the manner of her departure, which was notable more for what she didn’t, rather than did say.

‘It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve the people of New York for the past 10 years,’ she said in her statement. ‘New Yorkers’ resilience, strength, and optimism through the most difficult times has inspired me every day. Personally, the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such talented and committed colleagues on behalf of our state.’

Damningly, there was no mention of her boss, and close personal friend, Governor Cuomo.

The woman who’s spent the past decade aggressively defending the indefensible when it comes to the Governor’s behaviour, with the same arrogance, viciousness and stubbornness that he’s shown in defending himself, couldn’t bring herself to say a single positive word about him as she finally threw in the towel.

That, to me, says it all.

Cuomo loves to play on his Sicilian family roots.

So, in language he may understand, when even a long-time Consigliere turns rogue on the Boss – it’s never too long before the Boss gets whacked.

Andrew Cuomo promised this when he became Governor ten years ago: ‘The time has come to return integrity, performance and dignity to New York and make it the Empire State once again.’

Instead, he has delivered a dire and deadly performance during the coronavirus pandemic – and destroyed all vestige of integrity and dignity to the office he holds with his lies, hypocrisy, and predatory mistreatment of female staff.

Cuomo’s made New York the Shameful State.

He must resign today. 

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