Cuomo's Scandal May Mean Sign-Off For His Brother's Career

The frantic efforts by those closest to Andrew Cuomo to head off sexual-harassment allegations that wound up prompting his forced resignation as Governor in August may claim another casualty: his brother Chris.

CNN Nov. 30 announced that the younger Cuomo was being suspended indefinitely as host of its most-watched talk show, "Cuomo Prime Time," for what the cable-news network said was misleading it about the extent of his involvement in the campaign to discredit women who had accused his brother of sexual harassment.

James Drops Other Shoe

Evidence that Chris Cuomo had gone beyond what he previously told network executives and his viewers in trying to protect the then-Governor from the accusations over the past year emerged when State Attorney General Letitia James released thousands of pages of documents—including transcripts of the younger Cuomo's testimony before two special investigators—from the probe that found Andrew Cuomo had behaved improperly toward 11 women, most of who at one time had worked for him.

That material—which the former Governor, ironically, had been taunting Ms. James about holding back, claiming it would discredit the damaging report she released in August—showed Chris Cuomo had not only been involved in strategy discussions, as he previously acknowledged, but had volunteered his help in producing information that would discredit accusers or alert the then-Governor to who was working on negative stories about his conduct.

CNN said in the statement announcing his suspension, "When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother's staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly. But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second. However, these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother's efforts than we previously knew."

Compromised His Integrity

The younger Cuomo told the outside attorneys Ms. James tapped to investigate the sexual-harassment allegations—upon a request for her intervention by the then-Governor—that, "As the situation started to accelerate, my brother asked me to be in the loop."

The role he took on, however, went beyond "being in the loop" to demanding a greater say in strategy sessions and mustering a defense on his brother's behalf, according to other documents, at one point telling his closest aide, then-Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, "We are making mistakes we can't afford."

As reporting on the alleged harassment intensified in early March as accusers besides the first one, former top aide Lindsey Boylan, spoke of improper conduct toward them by the Governor, Ms. DeRosa asked Chris Cuomo for "intel" on a story being prepared by Politico, prompting him to reply, "On it."

One article the New York Times published about a claim by a non-staffer, Anna Ruch, that Andrew Cuomo touched her inappropriately at a wedding where both were guests led his brother to text Ms. DeRosa to say, "I have a lead on the wedding girl" that led him to believe someone "put her up to" falsely accusing the Governor.

He later told the investigating attorneys, Joon Kim and Anne Clark, that the "lead" had been false.

Chasing Down Ronan Report

In mid-March, Ms. DeRosa asked Chris Cuomo to find out what he could about an article reportedly being put together by Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker investigative reporter who previously had written a devastating expose of movie producer Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse of subordinates and actresses and co-wrote one of then-State Attorney General's Eric Schneiderman's physical abuse of several women with whom he was involved--a story that prompted Mr. Schneiderman's May 2018 resignation and led to Ms. James's election to his job that November.

Chris Cuomo told the investigating attorneys, "When asked, I would reach out to sources, other journalists, to see if they had heard of anybody else coming out" with damaging allegations regarding Andrew Cuomo.

Asking questions about such reporting in progress and sharing what was learned with a target of an investigation article constitute serious breaches of journalistic etiquette, which was why CNN would have faced increasing pressure from other reporters—including its own staff—if it had not suspended Mr. Cuomo once those details about his conduct were revealed.

Gave Brother Free Ride

Eyebrows had previously been raised about the younger Cuomo's having the then-Governor on his nightly show during the early months of the pandemic. While the banter between them—even when the younger Cuomo was quarantined in his basement with the coronavirus—proved popular with viewers, objections were raised about his uncritical questioning of Andrew Cuomo at a time when he had come under fire for his decision to order state hospitals to release nursing-home residents they had treated for the virus back to the homes once they were stabilized. The then-Governor also pushed through subsequent legislation adopted as part of the state budget that immunized both the hospitals and the homes against lawsuits that might result from the discharges.

Those matters are still being investigated by several law-enforcement agencies. A State Assembly report issued late last month that stated its own probe had confirmed many of the sexual-harassment findings of Ms. James's report stated it found no evidence of wrongdoing in Mr. Cuomo's actions regarding the nursing homes but severely criticized him for his aides including Ms. DeRosa deleting a higher nursing-home death rate from a state Health Department report in July 2020 at the same time that he was negotiating a $5.2-million advance for a book on his efforts to cope with the pandemic.