Public Will Hear Something On Cuomo Administration/Buffalo Billion Probe In July Or August

Buried at the bottom of the first item in Fred Dicker's column today is this:

While Bharara — whose ongoing probes of state government corruption led to the convictions of the two former leaders of the Legislature, Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos — has refused to say when his investigation of Cuomo’s office will wrap up, one source close to the probe predicted, “The public will be hearing something in July or August.’’

The rest of the item is how Bharara has warned Cuomo's "independent investigator" into Buffalo Billion malfeasance, Bart Schwartz, from interfering in the federal probe of the governor's economic development programs:

US Attorney Preet Bharara has warned Gov. Cuomo’s “independent’’ investigator not to interfere with the federal corruption probe involving the Buffalo Billion project, related state contracts and two longtime friends of the governor, The Post has learned.

A source close to the criminal probe said the warning was blunt and direct and that Cuomo’s private-sector investigator, Bart Schwartz, conceded to several state officials that “he has been warned by federal authorities to stay away from anything’’ related to Bharara’s ongoing investigation.

“In meetings with state lawyers Schwartz and his people let it be known that they’ve been told to stay away from anything that Bharara is looking at,’’ said the source.

“Basically, what Schwartz is only doing is reviewing public documents and monitoring contracts and other things going forward, not investigating what went on in the past,’’ the source continued.

So, just as some of us thought when Cuomo announced Schwartz's hiring, the "independent" investigation being conducted by Schwartz is nothing more than a ruse to make it look like Cuomo's doing something about the malfeasance in his economic development programs.

Some of us also wondered if Schwartz was there to muck things up around the investigation, but Bharara's warning to stay away from his investigation pretty clearly lets Schwartz - and Cuomo - know that if there's any screwing around, they'll be hit with criminal charges for tampering, attempted cover-up, etc.

We have heard a few times in the past couple of weeks that the investigation into Cuomo's economic development programs and his associates has continued to widen, with subpoenas seeking ever more information connected to Cuomo's people and their doings.

But with the presidential election coming in November, Bharara's going to want to get this wrapped up soon.

If Dicker's right, July or August will be that time.

We haven't had any leaks yet that the governor himself is in the sights of investigators and I doubt very much Cuomo will go out in handcuffs without there being a couple of leaks first to indicate that's about to happen.

So, for now, I'd say the investigation may not reach as high as Cuomo, but given how the investigations continue to widen and how, at the center of all of this is the relationship between Cuomo's donors and the stuff they got in return for giving money to Cuomo, that's still a possibility.