NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Calls for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign continue amid new revelations about phone conversations by a top aide.
Published reports say the governor’s vaccine czar may have crossed ethical lines by lobbying local officials for support.
The longtime advisor is not denying he made the calls, and says he did nothing wrong.
This comes after six women accused Cuomo of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior.
“It’s clear that Gov. Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners, as well as the people of New York,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said over the weekend.
“He should resign right now, because he’s holding up our effort to fight COVID. He’s literately in the way of us saving lives right now,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Now a report in the Washington Post claims one of the governor’s top advisers and vaccine czar, Larry Schwartz, made calls to county executives questioning their loyalty.
“Asking things like, ‘Are you willing to say that we should wait to see the results of the attorney general investigation,?'” investigative reporter Amy Brittain, who co-wrote the report, told CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez.
Brittain said it appears no Republican county executives got calls, only Democrats. Sanchez asked whether they felt threatened.
“They did not feel it was an implicit threat, but they felt that it was in the way that the person that they were talking to is the person who controlled the vaccine supply for their county. So they were wondering, what if I give the wrong answer, is the vaccine supply for my county going to be affected, given the immense amount of power that this many has over a very precious commodity in New York at the very moment,” Brittain said.
Schwartz is a longtime advisor to Cuomo and he’s also heading the state’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
He admitted to the Post that he made the calls to gauge political support, but said they were separate from his role in the vaccination effort and he “did nothing wrong.” He added he made the calls on his own, not at the direction of the governor.
Acting counsel to the governor Beth Garvey said in a statement that any assertion Schwartz “acted in any way unethically or in any way other than in the best interest of New Yorkers that he selflessly served” is “patently false.”
Brittain said her investigation opened a window into the pressure of Cuomo’s administration.
“Many of the people we spoke to said they were still publicly fearful of the wrath of Andrew Cuomo, if he found out that they were going to acknowledge the calls publicly,” she said.
The governor has denied touching anyone inappropriately.
President Joe Biden declined to call for Cuomo to resign, saying he wants to wait for the attorney general investigation to be complete.
source https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/03/15/cuomo-aide-larry-schwartz-under-fire-over-phone-calls/
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