New York AG Shielded Top Aide From Sexual Harassment Allegations, Accuser Says

Karl SalzmannDecember 8, 2022

Letitia James, who led investigation into allegations against Andrew Cuomo, now under scrutiny herself

New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) / Getty Images Karl Salzmann • December 8, 2022 1:40 pm

Democratic New York attorney general Letitia James covered up for a longtime aide who was accused of sexual harassment, the aide’s accuser told the New York Times.

James, who is best known for investigating sexual harassment allegations against disgraced ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D.), was “protecting her longtime chief of staff, Ibrahim Khan, and withholding any public finding of wrongdoing,” according to Khan’s accuser, former James aide Sofia Quintanar.

James, a far-left activist who has used taxpayer funds to spy on pro-life New Yorkers and hired a special counsel who wants to “abolish” Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in August 2021 released a report that led to Cuomo’s resignation. “No matter the perpetrator, we will not tolerate sexual harassment,” James said just this summer.

Now, however, Quintanar says James’s office covered up her allegation that Khan in Nov. 2021 “aggressively grabbed her by her shoulder, pulled her close, and ‘stuck his tongue down [her] throat,'” the Times reported.

Quintanar said James’s office told her that it confirmed the allegation. But the office nevertheless allowed Khan to “quietly submit his resignation in November with his reputation intact.”

James said in a statement that she “treated this matter as aggressively as every other matter that has come before our office.”

After the news broke, James, who won reelection last month, faced new scrutiny over her decision not to debate Republican challenger Michael Henry.

“Now we all know that she probably feared that somehow the sexual harassment scandal she worked so hard to cover up would come to light,” Henry told the New York Post.

Democratic New York governor Kathy Hochul, who took over after Cuomo’s resignation and won reelection last month, on Wednesday rejected calls for a probe into James’s office.

This is not the first harassment allegation against Khan. The Post reported in 2017 that investigators were looking into Khan for “drugging and sexually assaulting” a former coworker. The Manhattan district attorney’s office closed the case without pressing charges.

“Me and the other victims, we deserve the same vindication” that James gave to Cuomo’s accusers, Quintanar said. “It shouldn’t be any different because it happened in her house.”