Nearly 50 NY Lawmakers Call For Cuomo To Resign Or Be Impeached

Nearly 50 lawmakers in the New York state Legislature are calling for Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign or face impeachment after a fifth woman came forward to level charges of sexual misconduct against him.

“For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign,” state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said on Sunday. “Every day there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government.”

“We have allegations about sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the COVID-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project,” she said, referring to controversies swirling in the state capital.

According to a report from Fox News, 37 lawmakers from either the state Assembly or state Senate want Cuomo to resign, while 10 others have called for his impeachment.

To impeach the sitting governor, a simple majority is needed in the 150-member Assembly. A trail would then take place in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority of senators and judges from the state’s court of appeals would be needed to convict.

“There is no way I resign,” Cuomo told reporters on Sunday, blasting lawmakers. “They don’t override the people’s will, they don’t get to override elections,” he said. “I was elected by the people of New York state. I wasn’t elected by politicians.”

On Saturday, two more women, both former aides of Cuomo, came forward with new allegations of sexual misconduct.

Karen Hinton, who worked for Cuomo as a press aide, told The Washington Post that the governor called her to his “dimly lit” hotel room and hugged her twice following a work function in 2000. She said she pulled away from Cuomo, but he pulled her back toward his body and held onto her.

Hinton called the embrace “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.” The married Hinton pulled away, but “he pulls me back for another intimate embrace,” she told the paper. “I thought at that moment it could lead to a kiss, it could lead to other things, so I just pull away again, and I leave.”

Cuomo at the time led the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Peter Ajemian, Cuomo’s director of communications, addressed Hinton’s allegations in a statement to the Post.

“This did not happen,” he said. “Karen Hinton is a known antagonist of the Governor’s who is attempting to take advantage of this moment to score cheap points with made up allegations from 21 years ago. All women have the right to come forward and tell their story — however, it’s also the responsibility of the press to consider self-motivation. This is reckless.”

Meanwhile, Ana Liss, who worked for Cuomo as a policy and operations aide from 2013 to 2015,  said the governor once asked her if she had a boyfriend, then touched her lower back and kissed her hand. Liss said at first she thought his actions were harmless flirtations, but she said she came to believe that they “diminished her from an educated professional to ‘just a skirt,’” Fox News reported.

“It’s not appropriate, really, in any setting,” she said. The governor called her “sweetheart” and asked if she had a boyfriend, Liss told recalled to the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, Anna Ruch, a former Biden 2020 campaign worker, told The New York Times that the governor made unwanted sexual advances toward her after they met at a wedding in New York City in 2019. She also accused Cuomo, 63, of kissing her without her permission, even as she tried to pull away. Ruch said the encounter left her “confused and shocked and embarrassed.”

Another accuser, Charlotte Bennett, a former Cuomo aide, alleges that the governor inquired about her sex life and asked her if she would be amenable to having a relationship with an older man. And another former aide, Lindsey Boylan, said Cuomo “made inappropriate comments about her appearance, kissed her without her consent at the end of a meeting and once suggested they play strip poker while aboard his state-owned jet,” The Associated Press reported.

Boylan took to social media to voice support for Hinton and Liss in separate tweets.

“Thank you Karen Hinton for courageously sharing your story of how our boss, one of the most powerful men in the country, used his power to abuse you. I am sending you love. I am with you. We are with you,” she wrote.

She called Liss “brave,” adding, “It’s extremely destructive that our boss, the governor of New York, treated us this way.”

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