Andrew Cuomo - The Dirtiest Man In The Albany Cesspool Of Corruption

So many Cuomo stories today.

First, the games he's playing with the Tappan Zee Bridge plan.

Then the story of how Cuomo, along with Chris Christie, used Christie's Bridgegate cronies to play games when they wanted to hike the Port Authority bridge/tunnel tolls.

And now this one, as has been all over the Internet today:

In early 2007, when he was state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo brought on a longtime confidant as a consultant on mortgage industry investigations, a move that has gone undisclosed until now.
The friend was Howard Glaser, and he had another job at the same time: consultant and lobbyist for the very industry Cuomo was investigating.

Glaser, who went on to become a top state official in Cuomo's gubernatorial administration, was operating a lucrative consulting firm, the Glaser Group, with a host of mortgage industry clients.
Later that year, Glaser provided insights on Cuomo's investigations to industry players on a conference call hosted by an investment bank.

Cuomo's office ended up giving immunity to one of Glaser's clients a year into his term as attorney general.

Experts say the mortgage investigations Cuomo touted as "wide-ranging" came to little, even as he held one of the country's most powerful prosecutorial positions through the financial crisis and its aftermath.

... 

Before becoming a lobbyist for the mortgage industry, Glaser worked in the late 1990s under Cuomo at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he was known as Cuomo's "right-hand man'' and "hammer."

Glaser declined to release a list of his clients from the period he worked for the attorney general. A 2008 bio said his clients included "mortgage insurance companies, real estate and housing trade associations, mortgage bankers, and investment research companies."
Glaser's dual role when Cuomo was attorney general "poses a serious conflict of interest," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen.

At least two of Cuomo's early investigations involved firms that Glaser acknowledged to ProPublica were his clients. The client that was granted immunity in return for cooperation was the mortgage due diligence firm Clayton Holdings.

Gee, no wonder so many of the bad actors in the mortgage mess of '08 got away without prosecution.

Cuomo's right hand man, his "hammer," was working for both them and Cuomo, the attorney general investigating them.

I have written numerous times how Albany may be a cesspool of corruption, but nobody in that city - NOBODY - is dirtier than one Andrew M. Cuomo.

Could that be any clearer than from this Glaser story?