Cuomo Just Can’t Stand An Honest Investigation

In August 2013, a month after he announced the creation of a Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in state government, Andrew Cuomo said it was authorized to pursue wrongdoing wherever the evidence led, declaring, “Anything they want to look at, they can look at—me, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Comptroller, any Senator, any Assemblyman.”

Those remarks were made a year before he sought re-election, and the convening of the panel seemed a tacit admission that he had failed to make good on a 2010 campaign promise to root out corruption in Albany. Proof of that failure could be seen in the steady parade of elected officials—most in either the Southern District courthouse in Manhattan or the Eastern District one in Brooklyn—who had gone into business for themselves.