Governor Cuomo's Complicity In Christie Bridgegate Scandal Gets Some Scrutiny

Cuomo already has to worry about Preet Bharara's nosing around in his Moreland Commission wreckage and now there's this:

It hasn’t been a great few weeks for New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He got in a public spat with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara for closing down an anti-corruption commission, his budget was roundly criticized by many in his own party, and a new poll shows him losing serious ground to his Republican opponent if he gets a challenge on the left.

But another unwelcome development for the governor flew mostly under the radar, and has national implications. While the George Washington bridge scandal focused exclusively on the role of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the bridge is controlled by a joint New York-New Jersey bi-state authority – and last week Cuomo’s hand-picked Executive Director of the Port Authority, Patrick Foye, was issued a subpoena by the New Jersey legislative committee investigating the flap.

Investigators believe there are omissions in the carefully crafted timeline put forth by the Cuomo Administration about what they knew about the lane closures, and how they responded. ”Lots of questions need to be asked to fill in the blanks,” the committee’s Co-Chair John Wisniewski told Salon.

In a worst-case scenario, Cuomo’s version of events could come under great scrutiny and cause a number of new political and legal headaches. In a best-case scenario, he can no longer simply wave off questions about the issue as merely a New Jersey problem – and his office’s communications may now be exposed to investigators.

Read the whole piece by NY1 reporter Zack Fink over at Salon.

It's long but illuminating.

It becomes pretty clear by the end of the piece that

A) Cuomo knows more about the scandal than he is letting on
B) He's hiding when he learned about the closures and what he did after he learned about them
C) His Port Authority guy, Patrick Foye, is covering for him

Cuomo and Christie colluded to raise bridge/tunnel tolls and the PATH fare and as the Salon piece makes clear, they are on friendly terms, have met for dinner, and may have colluded on more than just the Port Authority fare and toll hikes.

It's time to find out if Cuomo helped Christie from his end in any way in this GWB scandal.

Here's hoping the NJ legislative committee looks to find out and whets the appetite of a US attorney in either New York or New Jersey to look more into Cuomo's complicity in the GWB mess.