Cuomo To Be Honored In Washington D.C. As "Champion Of Charters"

May's going to be a banner month for Andrew Cuomo and the charter entrepreneurs.

First he's hosting a ritzy education reform vacation getaway/conference in Lake Placid for charter entrepreneurs and other reformy types and now we learn that he's to be honored by the National Alliance for Public (sic) Charter Schools in D.C. alongside other charter heroes like sex criminal/Sacramento mayor Kevin "KJ" Johnson and for-profit college shill George Miller:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s support of charter schools in New York City and across the state has earned him the honor as a “Champion for Charters” from a national group at a event next month in Washington.

Cuomo was able to overstep New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the state budget approved March 31 by allowing charter schools to co-locate at public schools, and he secured continued aid for the schools in the city and across the state.

“This year Governor Cuomo stepped in to support the charter school community in New York City at a critical time,” the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools said in a news release yesterday. “He negotiated a budget deal with state lawmakers that guarantees future New York City charter schools rent-free space in under-used public school buildings or funding to offset the cost of renting a building.”

The event will be May 6 at the U.S. Capitol. It’s unclear whether Cuomo will attend; he rarely leaves the state.

He will be honored along with Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, and Illinois senator Mark Kirk, a Republican, as well as Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star.

Within the Beltway, the kind of support Cuomo has shown for charters and disdain he's shown for traditional public schools is hip and cool.

But of course back in NY State, where Cuomo is facing a state-wide rebellion over his education reform policies, anger over his support for the Common Core and the Endless Testing regime, outrage over his tax cap that starves public school districts of needed funds even as he throws more and more state mandates onto them and rage over his budget that steals funds from public schools and hands them off to the already-wealthy charter entrepreneurs like Eva Moskowitz, that support is not such a slam dunk.

It wil be interesting to see if Cuomo attends his honor ceremony in the same month that he chairs the education reform conference in Lake Placid.

Given his suddenly shaky re-election prospects, with a US attorney bearing down on him for what he did (or didn't) do in the Moreland Commission investigations, with his "liberal" base pissed at him for the budget, the tax cap and his education policies, the unions pissed at him for his anti-union stances, and upstaters pissed at him over the SAFE Act and other things, I bet he'll think twice about doing two pro-charter/pro-reform events in the same month, especially considering those folks are already supporting him politically and financially.

But we'll see - Sheriff Andy has been floundering a bit of late, ever since US Attorney for the Southern District took him on publicly over the Moreland mess, so he may just decide he needs the bask and glow of the charter folks to salve his wounded ego.

Cuomo On The Run From Reporters

Gov. Andrew Cuomo avoided reporters after a speech in Syracuse, wouldn't take questions, @TeriKWeaver reports. They chased him to car.
— Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) April 14, 2014

Syracuse.com also reported that Cuomo refused to take questions from the press after the  speech he gave to business people at the CenterState CEO annual luncheon:

After the speech, Cuomo didn't take questions from the press. His staff said his schedule in Syracuse was tight and that the speech started late.

The luncheon cost $65 to $80 per person, or $625 to $775 per table of 10 seats, according to CenterState's website.

I haven't seen any video of this, which is a shame, because the only thing funnier than the thought of Sheriff Andy Cuomo running from reporters to avoid questions about his Moreland Commission shutdown and the furor he caused when he unceremoniously ended it is video of Sheriff Andy running from reporters to avoid questions about his Moreland Commission shutdown and the furor he caused when he unceremoniously ended it.

That Cuomo is now running away from reporters rather than bullshitting his way through these impromptu press gaggles that occur when he gives speeches or makes official appearances around the state is an indication of just how much of a problem this Moreland mess is for Sheriff Andy.

Clearly he's worried about something or he wouldn't be running from the press.

Cuomo Fears A Third Party Candidate Could Make Him Lose Re-Election

An extraordinary column from Fred Dicker in the NY Post:

After his worst week in office since becoming governor, Andrew Cuomo is now viewed for the first time by important Democrats as potentially vulnerable to Republican challenger Rob Astorino, The Post has learned.

The changing sentiment results from the extraordinary criticisms Cuomo received last week from corruption-fighting Southern District US Attorney Preet Bharara — because of the governor’s summary dismissal of his anti-corruption Moreland Commission panel — and from an assortment of “good-government’’ over his transparently phony plan for a severely limited system of publicly financed elections.

“It was a disastrous week for Andrew. He was being attacked all over town, and it appeared to be the culmination of not just weeks, but months, of eroding support for the governor from within his own Democratic base,’’ one of the state’s most influential Democrats told The Post.

“People are starting to say, ‘Hey, maybe Astorino has a chance in the race, even if it is a long shot,’ and a lot of people, Democrats, are starting to also say that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,’’ he continued.

Several Democratic strategists said Cuomo’s eroding support among politically powerful New York City-based unions, including those behind the influential Working Families Party, all but assures an unusually low turnout among the city’s heavily Democratic voters, normally the foundation for a statewide Democratic victory.

At the same time, they expect Astorino, the popular and recently re-elected Westchester County executive, to do well, offsetting Democratic votes in his large suburban county, and his message of property-tax and spending cuts, educational reforms and economic development to appeal to suburban voters on Long Island as well.

“The traditional dynamics for Cuomo appear to be changing, with a big New York City vote no longer guaranteed and a bigger problem in the suburbs, because of Astorino, than [the governor] had expected,’’ said a prominent campaign consultant.

Cuomo, meanwhile, held a tense, hush-hush, meeting with Working Families Party leaders Dan Cantor and Bob Masters at his campaign headquarters in Manhattan last Thursday in an effort to head off the growing possibility that the WFP will field its own candidate for governor in November.

A source said Cuomo was told what he already knew: While the union-controlled WFP’s leadership would like to “do’’ Cuomo as the party’s nominee, widespread unhappiness with Cuomo’s support for business-tax cuts, spending restraints and a fatally flawed publicly financed campaign system is making that difficult.

Cuomo's vulnerable, folks, and that vulnerability is underscored by his need to meet up with WFP leaders in a "tense, hush-hush" pow-wow at his campaign headquarters last week to tell them they MUST not go the third party candidate route.

So far, opponents and critics from the left have been loathe to take on Sheriff Andy for fear that he would retaliate once re-elected.

But there now exists the possibility that he can be knocked off and that possibility brings leverage against the governor for groups on the left as well as the unions.

Cuomo expects the unions to use their GOTV operations in NYC for him and he expects the WFP to endorse him and further gin up the city vote totals in his column.

Cuomo is pretty unpopular upstate and in western New York, so he needs the city votes to offset weakness there, but what if they gave an election and the unions sat on their hands and the WFP didn't endorse Cuomo and Cuomo's city vote totals plummeted?

As Dicker says, GOP opponent Astorino remains a longshot, but a better longshot this week than he was last week as Cuomo faces challenges like he has never faced before.

I am in the camp that taking Cuomo out and electing a Republican benefits us better than re-electing Cuomo and letting him do to us what he did in the first term - tax cap, charter school protections, etc.

With a GOP governor, the Assembly becomes the linchpin to keep insane policies from being enacted, as the Dems there will look to hold the line against a Republican governor.

But with the Republican-Lite Cuomo in office right now pushing conservative fiscal policies, union-busting and corporate education reform, we have no linchpin to hold the line against these policies - the Dems in the Assembly just go along.

No matter what happens, we are seeing something extraordinary this week - a weakened and chastened Sheriff Andy Cuomo actually looking to the left for help in his re-election bid.

Cuomo's veneer of invincibility is disappearing and that's a very dangerous thing for Sheriff Andy.

He's got a lot of enemies out there in both parties and when they see they can hurt him without fear of retaliation, the floodgates are going to open up on him.

Cuomo Faces A Challenge Like He's Never Faced Before

Blake Zeff at Capital NY:

This time, Andrew Cuomo may be in some trouble.

I don’t write those words lightly: I’ve never written them before, and I’ve never even thought them.
But the man who’s picked fights with—and systematically disemboweled—every New York politician who’s stood in his way (or who he’s feared might stand in his way at some point) is up against a very different kind of obstacle this time.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has not only taken possession of the files from the  corruption-fighting Moreland Commission that Cuomo recently closed down as part of a budget deal, but has also publicly floated the possibility of investigating the governor’s alleged meddling in its investigations.

What’s more, Bharara has publicly, humiliatingly suggested that Cuomo’s focus on cleaning up Albany was nothing more than a ploy to gain political leverage in budget negotiations.

This is a far more vexing and dangerous political threat than the governor faced in the likes of other rivals, like Comptroller Tom Dinapoli, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Mayor Bill de Blasio, each of whom he has bullied and belittled without much trouble.

The unique problem posed by Bharara is that few of the tools Cuomo typically uses to beat back problems (and opponents) will be at his disposal when it comes to dealing with the federal prosecutor.

And what were the tools Cuomo used against the Big Three?

Zeff points out how Cuomo "investigated" DiNapoli when Cuomo was attorney general, a la Chris Christie, never indicting him over any crime but publicly besmirching his reputation and making him look like a criminal in the process.

He notes how he refused to endorse Schneiderman until long after it didn't matter, then subsumed some of the attorney general's power into his own once Scheiderman took office.

And de Blasio - well, you know what he did to de Blasio.

But Zeff says Cuomo doesn't have these same opportunities to humiliate Bharara:

The point is that Cuomo will not be able to do to a federal prosecutor what he did to these three.

Sure, he can seek to discredit Bharara anonymously (he’d be a fool to openly antagonize someone potentially investigating his office). And he could obliquely signal some species of threat, transmitting via one of the administration's go-to journalists some revelation about what Cuomo might be planning next.

But in the case of Bharara, when it is “reported” that people familiar with the governor’s thinking hear that he is contemplating some kind of countermove, it will lack some its usual menacing force.

That’s because Cuomo is entering this conflict without his usual leverage, against someone he can’t control, embarrass or investigate. Someone who also has subpoena power, and a potential interest in Cuomo’s staff’s communications. (Recall, the governor is famously protective of his office’s communiques, and rumored to use instantly evaporating Blackberry PIN messages instead of emails, the better to avoid a trail.)

The fact that the prosecutor in question is Bharara will make things that much more difficult.

I knew Bharara a bit when we briefly overlapped in Chuck Schumer’s Senate office on Capitol Hill around a decade ago. You don’t survive a multi-year tenure in that office without absorbing lessons in political power and communications. A quick wit and serious legal mind, he isn’t just a remote, lawyerly figure who happens to be a good prosecutor. Bharara, like Cuomo, knows how to operate in a political context.

They battled over turf when Cuomo was attorney general and both sought to police crime in common jurisdictions. (By all accounts, it was not an overly friendly cohabitation, with competition erupting over matters involving press releases.) Neither man backed down.

Zeff says despite all of this, Cuomo may skate like nothing happened, that what Bharara is planning to investigate does not necessarily constitute legal trouble for Sheriff Andy, but says this could be the outcome:

There’s also this: What if Bharara does to Cuomo what Cuomo did to Dinapoli? Until the U.S. attorney explicitly says that the governor is not under investigation, Cuomo could have a cloud over him that his Republican opponent Rob Astorino will be sure to exploit.

The New York City tabloids, so often partners to Cuomo in his never-quite-explicit personal crusades against other New York officials, have taken Bharara’s side in the battle, joining the Times in cheering him on and swatting at the governor. It’s the last thing Cuomo needs, for reasons beyond the obvious. Yes, it’s deeply unflattering on its own, but also it threatens his veneer of unquestionable invincibility—the very thing that keeps the rest of the state’s political firmament from criticizing him.

And that's exactly right - Bharara's move to take over Moreland and publicly chastise Cuomo over shutting the commission down before it had completed its work and refusing to rule out investigating the governor himself pricks the vneer of invincibility around Sheriff Andy and that's a very dangerous thing for Cuomo.

Just as fellow political bully and pal Chris Christie is a wounded animal in the water with the sharks all around him in New Jersey now that the Bridgegate scandal pricked the veneer of invincibility around him, Cuomo could end up with lots of enemies coming out of the woodwork to feed if Bharara draws any blood on him in this matter.

Former Moreland Commissions Erupt In Fury Over Cuomo's Interference In Panel Work

I don't know how deeply US Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara intends to probe Cuomo and his aides over their interference into the Moreland Commission work, but from accounts of former Moreland Commissioners given to Ken Lovett in the Daily News, it seems there's a lot there:

ALBANY - Some members of Gov. Cuomo's short-lived anti-corruption commission are angry and bitter.

The Daily News spoke to close to 10 sources tied to the soon-to-be-defunct panel, and a number of them denounced what they said was interference from Cuomo's office.

Others expressed frustration that Cuomo pulled the plug before the panel could finish its work.
All asked for anonymity for fear of blowback from the governor.

One commission member was so angry that he wouldn't take a call from The News, signaling through a secretary that he was afraid of what he might say.

Another source called it the worst time in her professional career.

"It was an exercise in frustration," said a third source.

...

The commission formed to root out corruption in state government was often divided, with the investigators on one side and Cuomo's $175,000-a-year executive director Regina Calcaterra on the other.

"There was no trust there," said the first commission source. "It was pretty widely understood that anything Regina Calcaterra knew, it would immediately be on the desks of" top Cuomo aides Larry Schwartz and Mylan Denerstein.

Denerstein was described as "measured" but Schwartz as aggressive. "I heard the word 'bully' mentioned more than once," said the source.

The panel's zeal to investigate was repeatedly curbed by the governor's office, the source said.

The commission wanted to subpoena prior ethics complaints from its ineffectual predecessor, the Legislative Ethics Commission, but was ordered not to, sources said.

And as they probed how lawmakers spend their campaign money, commissioners wanted to send subpoenas to vendors like hotels or florists to see what was purchased.

The subpoenas never went out, the sources said.

The frustration mounted when subpoenas were held back from entities with ties to Cuomo, including the powerful Real Estate Board of New York.

Another subpoena earmarked for the state Democratic Party was initially killed. And one that had actually been served on the ad firm the party used to promote Cuomo's agenda was rescinded after Cuomo aides erupted in fury, the sources said.

The Lovett News article goes on to say that Cuomo's people really tried to derail the commission after it released an "explosive preliminary report" in December - for example, the Cuomo administration deliberately let a contract with a company that provided advanced data analytics to expire just as commissioners were getting a handle on how to use it for investigations.

Then the chief investigator for the commission, Danya Perry, resigned in protest over the Cuomo administration's interference in the commission's work.

By the end of the year, Cuomo was looking for any old excuse to shut the commission down because it had become a "liability" for him - both with the work it was doing on legislators and the headaches it was giving him over his own donor connections.

It seems pretty clear that Cuomo was hiding something from the commission by refusing subpoenas go out to his own donors like the REBNY and that he didn't really want the commission finding anything too "explosive" on the legislature either.

In short, the Moreland Commission was supposed to be a "rubber stamp" committee for him, the way his "Common Core panel" was, but Moreland Commissioners were taking the work seriously, something Cuomo didn't want or like.

That's why he shut it down after declaring victory on ethics reform with the lame ethics reform package he got passed into the state budget last month.

As I said earlier, I don't know how intent Bharara is on investigating Cuomo and his interference in the commission's work, but if he's willing to go there, I would bet a couple of Danielson artifacts that there's dirt to be found on Cuomo.

There's a reason why Sheriff Andy wanted to shield his own donors from subpoenas, there's a reason why they steered the commission to subpoena some individuals and entities and ignore others, there's a reason Cuomo wanted the commission shut down in December after the "explosive preliminary report."

Cuomo likes to play as if he's the Sheriff of Albany, out to clean up the rot and corruption in the capital, but the truth is, he's as dirty or dirtier than anybody else there.

It would be nice if we finally got some independent investigator to take on the investigative work and scrutinize the governor the way he deserves to be scrutinized.

Is Preet Bharara going to be that independent investigator?

The Potential Trouble Cuomo Has Over The Moreland Commission Mess

US attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara is picking up the Moreland Commission investigations now that Cuomo has shut the whole thing down and today Bharara refused to rule out investigations into the actions taken by the governor and his staff around the commission's activities.

The Daily News reports some potential problems for Cuomo that the US attorney may be looking at:

The Daily News reported Wednesday night that Cuomo's soon-to-be-defunct Moreland Commission has agreed to turn over all its documents to Bharara's office. 

The News also detailed last fall involvement by Cuomo and his aides in the operation of the Moreland Commission. Cuomo aides, the News reported, ordered the panel to withhold certain subpoenas that were set to go to interests with ties to the governor, including the Real Estate Board of New York and the state Democratic Party. The News also reported last fall that Cuomo and his staff met directly with the commission's co-chairs last September. 

Bharara called such revelations troubling, if true. 

""I don't know what all the facts are," he said. "What I can tell you is that it's impossible to overstate the importance of independence on the part of any investigative body. And that is particular true when you're talking about investigative bodies, whether they're the public corruption unit in my office or something like the Moreland Commission, for there to be independence. 

"Without independence, the public does not trust what investigations are taking place, does not trust what prosecutions are brought, does not trust what results are gotten from those investigations and prosecutions. So people should take very very seriously any suggestion--and I take them seriously when people suggest it about our office or any other office in the Justice Department--that there was either influence or interference." 

"When my public corruption unit operate, it has to operate without fear or favor, without reference to what political party the targets are from, without reference to what editorial pages are saying, without reference to what people's personal ambitions are." 

Bharara's investigators are set to pick up the documents from the commission sometime Thursday. They will go through them to see if there are any leads to follow that the commission didn't get to finish because Cuomo disbanded it after the Legislature as part of the new state budget agreed to different ethic reform measures. 

He also didn't rule out potentially looking at the actions of Cuomo and his aides--a potential issue for a governor heading into re-election season.. 

Asked directly if he is planning a formal ethics probe into the governor, Bharara said: "I'm not going to prejudge what we'll be looking at , what we'll be investigating, and where the facts will lead."

In short, Bharara says he will go after Cuomo and/or his aides if the evidence warrants that.

Given the reports of interference from Cuomo and his aides, I think there is a lot of potential trouble here for Cuomo.

Here's what the Times reported today:

In announcing the closing of the commission, Mr. Cuomo said that new ethics legislation, including tougher laws on bribery and corruption, and improved enforcement of election law, would stand in the panel’s stead.

 

But many of the panel’s commissioners were troubled by the move, several said in interviews. 

One commissioner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of antagonizing the governor, complained of meddling by some of Mr. Cuomo’s top aides in the panel’s investigative work.

 

This commissioner said Lawrence S. Schwartz, the governor’s secretary, and Mylan L. Denerstein, Mr. Cuomo’s counsel, “would routinely call and say, ‘How can you issue a subpoena like this?’ or ‘These people shouldn’t be on it.’ “

In September, Mr. Cuomo had at least two private meetings with the chairmen of the commission, according to records of his daily schedule. In one instance, Mr. Cuomo’s office persuaded the commission to delay issuing a subpoena to the Real Estate Board of New York, whose leaders donated to the governor’s campaigns and supported a business coalition, the Committee to Save New York, that spent millions of dollars on advertising in support of his agenda.

The commissioner asserted that Mr. Cuomo had publicly trumpeted the panel’s independence while privately seeking to control and direct it.

 

“Andrew says this is the finest group of law enforcement people who have ever been assembled, and they’re independent,” the commissioner said. “That was never the case.”

 

“And the fact that he wants to declare it a triumph is ridiculous,” the commissioner added.

Helluva way for Cuomo to kick off his re-election year, having to defend against these stories in the media.

And remember too that Cuomo, ever the sledgehammer in politics, has bruised and battered enough people that they're going to be looking to get even with him.

This Moreland Commission mess may just give them the opportunity to do that, the way Bridgegate gave critics of Chris Christie the opportunity to get even with the NJ governor (think Dawn Zimmer and the allegations that Christie's lieutentant governor tried to extort a real estate development out of her in return for Sandy aid.)

As I wrote in an earlier post, this may turn out to be nothing and Cuomo will go on as impervious to scandal as ever.

But the potential is there for it to turn out very, very badly for him too - especially in a re-election year.

I can imagine Cuomo's GOP opponent, Rob Astorino running these sorts of ads against Sheriff Andy:

Him "I'm Rob Astorino and I'm NOT under investigation by the US attorney's office for corruption, unlike my opponent, Governoe Andrew M. Cuomo, who is alleged to have tampered with criminal investigations being conducted by the Moreland Commission..."

Is Moreland Andrew Cuomo's Bridgegate?

Chris Christie seemed to be on top of the world election night 2013 as the returns came in - Christie had won 62.5% of the vote over his Democratic opponent and was poised to not only enjoy a second term as New Jersey governor but also pivot from state office to a national campaign for president.

And then a little-known matter that occurred before the election, the closing of three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, blew up into a pretty big scandal, with at least four Christie cronies losing their jobs over the matter and with Christie now facing a widening federal investigation into his politicization of Sandy aid, potential conflicts of interest at the Port Authority and the original Bridgegate allegations that opened Christie up to scrutiny in the first place.

Back in New York State, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo also seems to be on top of the world these days, having just shoved through a fourth on-time state budget that he was able to use to punish political enemies and reward political allies and sitting on a campaign war chest that all but ensures his re-election this November.

But under the surface of all that good stuff for Cuomo lies the rot that is political corruption in Albany, rot that Cuomo himself decided to take on by convening the Moreland Commission to investigate legislative malfeasance and criminality.

Rumor had it that the governor's office was very involved in just what the Moreland Commission could and couldn't investigate, with the intereference getting so bad that one of the commission chairs eventually resigned from the Moreland Commission.

Cuomo had been using the Moreland Commission investigations to threaten members of the legislature to do what he wanted around a host of issues, including ethics reform and public financing of campaigns, but announced right after the this year's budget deal that all was so swell with the ethics reforms agreed upon by the Senate, Assembly and Cuomo himself in the budget that the Moreland Commission would be disbanded because it was no longer needed.

That didn't sit well with some good government types who felt Cuomo was sweeping the investigations under the rug for his own politically expedient reasons, but Sheriff Andy would brook none of that criticism, saying Moreland had done its work and now its time was over.

Enter the US attorney for the Southern District of New York:

Less than two weeks after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly shut down a commission he had formed to investigate political corruption in New York State, the United States attorney in Manhattan is sharply questioning the governor’s decision and is taking possession of all of the panel’s case files, according to letters sent to the commission’s members on April 3 and again on Wednesday afternoon.

 

The move by the United States attorney, Preet Bharara, amounted to an unusual rebuke of Mr. Cuomo, a former prosecutor himself, who swept into office four years ago promising to clean up what many have called a culture of corruption in Albany.

Mr. Cuomo created the panel, the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, in July, with great fanfare and a broad mandate to restore public trust in government. But watchdog groups raised concerns about the panel’s credibility after reports about interference by the governor’s office, which leaned on the commission to limit the scope of its investigations, influence which subpoenas it would issue, and in some cases, stop the commission from issuing subpoenas to groups with ties to Mr. Cuomo.

 

On March 29, Mr. Cuomo announced that as part of budget negotiations between his office and the Legislature, the panel, more commonly known as the Moreland Commission, was being disbanded. 

Five days later, Mr. Bharara sent the commission’s chairmen and top officials a letter saying he was “disappointed to learn” of the commission’s “premature end,” acknowledging that its work was “aggressive, active and ongoing,” but incomplete, and calling its shutdown “difficult to understand.”

 

In the letter sent April 3, Mr. Bharara asked the chairmen and the commission’s staff — all of whom were appointed by the governor — whether Mr. Cuomo had abandoned his commitment to fight corruption for a short-term political gain.

 

“The sequence of these events gives the appearance, although I am sure this is not the intent, that investigations potentially significant to the public interest have been bargained away as part of the negotiated arrangement between legislative and executive leaders,” he wrote.

 

Mr. Bharara requested that commissioners and staff members preserve the panel’s investigative files.

 

On Wednesday, in a letter addressed to the 24 members of the commission, Mr. Bharara reported that the panel’s chairmen — William J. Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney, and Milton L. Williams Jr., a former state and federal prosecutor in Manhattan — had agreed to turn over the files.

The sudden turn of events raised the possibility that Mr. Cuomo’s dealings with the commission, which once seemed likely to burnish his reputation as a reformer, could now become an embarrassment for the governor.

Actually if Cuomo bargained away "investigations potentially significant to the public interest" as part of a "negotiated arrangement between legislative and executive leaders," then Cuomo has opened himself up to a potential criminal investigation for quid pro quo dealings.

As I like to say, I'm not a lawyer, but common sense tells me there's a problem if the governor knowingly negotiated away ongoing criminal investigations involving legislative members for, say, expended charter school protections in NYC or the so-called ethics reform deal he made with the legislature.

In addition, with so many rumors flying that Cuomo put the kibbosh on any investigations into his own donors and otherwise interfered with the work of the commission so badly that one of its chairs resigned, Bharara may find evidence that leads to serious problems for members of the Cuomo administration or even for Cuomo himself.

We're a long way from the Moreland Commission turning into Cuomo's Bridgegate, but to be quite frank, I can't imagine that Sheriff Andy is all that happy that Preet Bharara is running around telling radio, TV and newspaper outlets that he wants to know if the governor traded away criminal investigations for negotiated agreements he wanted in the budget deal, nor can he be happy that Bharara is getting his hands on Moreland Commission documents that may show interference by Cuomo's people or Cuomo himself in the workings of the Moreland Commission.

That Bharara happens to be a politically ambitious U.S. attorney who may be looking to make some political bones by taking out a NY State governor (as Cuomo himself did with his investigation of Spitzer when Cuomo was state attorney general) further suggests that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo - Sheriff Andy to we here at Perdido Street School - has got some sleepless nights ahead of him.

As I say, we're a long way from this turning into Cuomo's Bridgegate nightmare, but the potential is certainly there for some very bad things to come out of this for Sheriff Andy and/or his merry men and women in the executive branch.

Cuomo Strokes Himself

Sad Andy Cuomo worried that the corruption arrests of State Senator Malcolm Smith and Assemblyman Eric Stevenson is taking the winds out of his "I, the Sun King, have made Albany work!" meme:

Tragically, I was not able (or, for that matter, invited) to be with Gov. Cuomo during the U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's #tawdrygraft presser on the case against Assemblyman Eric Stevenson. I'm sure that would have been some must-see TV. 

Cuomo's statement on the unsealing of the corruption complaint against the Bronx lawmaker does two things, and it does them in a specific order.

First, the governor reminds the public that as attorney general, he locked up a few dirty dealers himself. Then he gives Bharara & Co. a pat on the back for a job well done.

What's an AG-turned-governor to do, really?

It's reasonable to think he wouldn't be totally thrilled with hearing Bharara roll out his second bombshell investigation of this week by asserting that a "show-me-the-money culture in Albany is alive and well" after the four years Cuomo spent as New York's top legal authority before winning his current Second Floor office in a campaign that emphasized his will to restore integrity to the Empire State.

At the same time, given that very track record, there's no choice but to send a "we includes me" message about supporting the feds' probes of venal pols. 

Here's the governor's full statement:

“The allegations of public corruption by City and State officials revealed this week are appalling. New Yorkers deserve a government that is as good as the people it serves and the events of the last few days fail this and every standard of public service.

"As Attorney General I prosecuted numerous public corruption cases, including putting former Senator Espada and Comptroller Hevesi behind bars, and believe firmly that anytime the public’s trust is violated, we must act quickly and aggressively to hold the guilty parties accountable.

"I commend US Attorney Preet Bharara, District Attorney Robert Johnson and their partners in law enforcement on their dedication to prosecuting corruption at every level.

"Those of us committed to the public and honored to hold its trust have zero tolerance for the actions brought to light this week, and will continue to use our power to fight to ensure integrity and trust to government in New York.”

Three things to say here.

First, as I noted earlier this week, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo refused to put even one bankster responsible for the '08 collapse behind bars.

Not even one.

As the Times notes here, he investigated lots of the banksters, but he never pulled the trigger on even one indictment.

Perhaps he didn't want to anger his donor base before running for governor in '09?

Or perhaps he was too busy taking suitcases full of cash from them in hotel rooms?

Hard to know, but on Wall Street criminality, Cuomo was a zero.

Next, as I pointed out earlier this week, Preet Baharara has the same track record on Wall Street crime that Cuomo has.

Not one bankster responsible for the '08 collapse scalp in Preet's belt.

Not one.

These guys can bump chests and measure legal brief sizes over the political corruption all they want.

The fact is, they're putting guys who took $20,000 or $50,000 bribes behind bars while the guys at Goldman and AIG and JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup and BoA and Lehman and Bear Stearns who stole billions get off scott free.

Want to bump chests, fellas - put some banksters in jail before they wreck the economy again.

Finally, note the snarkiness from Celeste Katz on the Cuomo presser.

Can't say for certain, but it sounds like Little Andy is mad at her and had her barred from it.

For a guy who thinks he's so tough, these reporters do get under his skin, don't they?

Hypocritical US Attorney Rings Hands Over Smith, Halloran Corruption (UPDATE)

US Attorney Preet Baharara expressed disappointment today as he announced the indictments of State Senator Malcolm Smith, City Councilman Dan Halloran, and others on bribery and fraud charges related to the 2013 mayoral race in New York City:

At the Tuesday morning press conference discussing the arrests of state Sen. Malcolm Smith and several others, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara repeated his plea for elected officials to redouble their efforts to fight the seemingly endless tide of official corruption in New York.


Bharara quoted extensively from recordings of several of the accused musing on the role of money in local and state politics — at its center, that is — and said, “After statements like this, and after the string of public corruption scandals that we continue to expose, many may understandably fear that there is no vote that is not for sale, no office without a price, and no official clean of corruption. Many may understandably resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest.”


Bharara said it was time for leaders to step up to the plate, and compared what he referred to as “the public corruption crisis in New York” to the film “Groundhog Day.” (As he acknowledged, this comparison made Bharara’s press conference itself a little like the 1993 Bill Murray comedy, since the prosecutor used the same reference in March 2011 when announcing the arrests of Sen. Carl Kruger and others in another bribery scandal.)

But as Matt Taibbi pointed out back in 2011, Preet Baharara is himself implicated in the revolving door scandal between Wall Street regulatory bodies, government officials and Wall Street and has failed to hold even one banker responsible for the 2008 financial collapse accountable:

In the end, of course, it wasn't just the executives of Lehman and AIGFP who got passes. Virtually every one of the major players on Wall Street was similarly embroiled in scandal, yet their executives skated off into the sunset, uncharged and unfined. Goldman Sachs paid $550 million last year when it was caught defrauding investors with crappy mortgages, but no executive has been fined or jailed — not even Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre, Goldman's outrageous Euro-douche who gleefully e-mailed a pal about the "surreal" transactions in the middle of a meeting with the firm's victims. In a similar case, a sales executive at the German powerhouse Deutsche Bank got off on charges of insider trading; its general counsel at the time of the questionable deals, Robert Khuzami, now serves as director of enforcement for the SEC.

Another major firm, Bank of America, was caught hiding $5.8 billion in bonuses from shareholders as part of its takeover of Merrill Lynch. The SEC tried to let the bank off with a settlement of only $33 million, but Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the action as a "facade of enforcement." So the SEC quintupled the settlement — but it didn't require either Merrill or Bank of America to admit to wrongdoing. Unlike criminal trials, in which the facts of the crime are put on record for all to see, these Wall Street settlements almost never require the banks to make any factual disclosures, effectively burying the stories forever. "All this is done at the expense not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth," says Rakoff. Goldman, Deutsche, Merrill, Lehman, Bank of America ... who did we leave out? Oh, there's Citigroup, nailed for hiding some $40 billion in liabilities from investors. Last July, the SEC settled with Citi for $75 million. In a rare move, it also fined two Citi executives, former CFO Gary Crittenden and investor-relations chief Arthur Tildesley Jr. Their penalties, combined, came to a whopping $180,000.

Throughout the entire crisis, in fact, the government has taken exactly one serious swing of the bat against executives from a major bank, charging two guys from Bear Stearns with criminal fraud over a pair of toxic subprime hedge funds that blew up in 2007, destroying the company and robbing investors of $1.6 billion. Jurors had an e-mail between the defendants admitting that "there is simply no way for us to make money — ever" just three days before assuring investors that "there's no basis for thinking this is one big disaster." Yet the case still somehow ended in acquittal — and the Justice Department hasn't taken any of the big banks to court since.

All of which raises an obvious question: Why the hell not?

Gary Aguirre, the SEC investigator who lost his job when he drew the ire of Morgan Stanley, thinks he knows the answer.

Last year, Aguirre noticed that a conference on financial law enforcement was scheduled to be held at the Hilton in New York on November 12th. The list of attendees included 1,500 or so of the country's leading lawyers who represent Wall Street, as well as some of the government's top cops from both the SEC and the Justice Department.

Criminal justice, as it pertains to the Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys of the world, is not adversarial combat, with cops and crooks duking it out in interrogation rooms and courthouses. Instead, it's a cocktail party between friends and colleagues who from month to month and year to year are constantly switching sides and trading hats. At the Hilton conference, regulators and banker-lawyers rubbed elbows during a series of speeches and panel discussions, away from the rabble. "They were chummier in that environment," says Aguirre, who plunked down $2,200 to attend the conference.

Aguirre saw a lot of familiar faces at the conference, for a simple reason: Many of the SEC regulators he had worked with during his failed attempt to investigate John Mack had made a million-dollar pass through the Revolving Door, going to work for the very same firms they used to police. Aguirre didn't see Paul Berger, an associate director of enforcement who had rebuffed his attempts to interview Mack — maybe because Berger was tied up at his lucrative new job at Debevoise & Plimpton, the same law firm that Morgan Stanley employed to intervene in the Mack case. But he did see Mary Jo White, the former U.S. attorney, who was still at Debevoise & Plimpton. He also saw Linda Thomsen, the former SEC director of enforcement who had been so helpful to White. Thomsen had gone on to represent Wall Street as a partner at the prestigious firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Two of the government's top cops were there as well: Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Robert Khuzami, the SEC's current director of enforcement. Bharara had been recommended for his post by Chuck Schumer, Wall Street's favorite senator. And both he and Khuzami had served with Mary Jo White at the U.S. attorney's office, before Mary Jo went on to become a partner at Debevoise. What's more, when Khuzami had served as general counsel for Deutsche Bank, he had been hired by none other than Dick Walker, who had been enforcement director at the SEC when it slow-rolled the pivotal fraud case against Rite Aid.

"It wasn't just one rotation of the revolving door," says Aguirre. "It just kept spinning. Every single person had rotated in and out of government and private service."

The Revolving Door isn't just a footnote in financial law enforcement; over the past decade, more than a dozen high-ranking SEC officials have gone on to lucrative jobs at Wall Street banks or white-shoe law firms, where partnerships are worth millions. That makes SEC officials like Paul Berger and Linda Thomsen the equivalent of college basketball stars waiting for their first NBA contract. Are you really going to give up a shot at the Knicks or the Lakers just to find out whether a Wall Street big shot like John Mack was guilty of insider trading? "You take one of these jobs," says Turner, the former chief accountant for the SEC, "and you're fit for life."

Fit — and happy. The banter between the speakers at the New York conference says everything you need to know about the level of chumminess and mutual admiration that exists between these supposed adversaries of the justice system. At one point in the conference, Mary Jo White introduced Bharara, her old pal from the U.S. attorney's office.

"I want to first say how pleased I am to be here," Bharara responded. Then, addressing White, he added, "You've spawned all of us. It's almost 11 years ago to the day that Mary Jo White called me and asked me if I would become an assistant U.S. attorney. So thank you, Dr. Frankenstein."

Next, addressing the crowd of high-priced lawyers from Wall Street, Bharara made an interesting joke. "I also want to take a moment to applaud the entire staff of the SEC for the really amazing things they have done over the past year," he said. "They've done a real service to the country, to the financial community, and not to mention a lot of your law practices."

Haw! The line drew snickers from the conference of millionaire lawyers. But the real fireworks came when Khuzami, the SEC's director of enforcement, talked about a new "cooperation initiative" the agency had recently unveiled, in which executives are being offered incentives to report fraud they have witnessed or committed. From now on, Khuzami said, when corporate lawyers like the ones he was addressing want to know if their Wall Street clients are going to be charged by the Justice Department before deciding whether to come forward, all they have to do is ask the SEC.

"We are going to try to get those individuals answers," Khuzami announced, as to "whether or not there is criminal interest in the case — so that defense counsel can have as much information as possible in deciding whether or not to choose to sign up their client."

Aguirre, listening in the crowd, couldn't believe Khuzami's brazenness. The SEC's enforcement director was saying, in essence, that firms like Goldman Sachs and AIG and Lehman Brothers will henceforth be able to get the SEC to act as a middleman between them and the Justice Department, negotiating fines as a way out of jail time. Khuzami was basically outlining a four-step system for banks and their executives to buy their way out of prison. "First, the SEC and Wall Street player make an agreement on a fine that the player will pay to the SEC," Aguirre says. "Then the Justice Department commits itself to pass, so that the player knows he's 'safe.' Third, the player pays the SEC — and fourth, the player gets a pass from the Justice Department."

So Baharara indicts these penny ante crooks like Smith and Halloran while letting the REAL criminals - the Wall Street and hedge fund crooks who did their best to bring the economy to collapse in 2008, enriched themselves off the bailouts, and continue to steal with impunity - to get off scot free.

And why not? 

Baharara hopes to one day follow his mentor Mary Jo White onto the Wall Street gravy train, then perhaps go back into government again as White has done, only to return to the Wall Street gravy train at some later date.

It is a joke for Baharara to ring his hands over the supposed failures of the political establishment to "step up to the plate" and rein in political corruption around the state.

Has anybody outside of then attorney general, now governor, Andrew Cuomo and current Wall Street pal Chuck Schumer done more to let the Wall Street criminals responsible for the '08 collapse off with impunity then Preet Baharara?

UPDATE - 3:47 PM: As if on cue, another financial figure and "watchdog" has just left her government post to enrich herself off the Wall Street trough:

Former top financial watchdog Mary Schapiro has become the latest official to trade a government role for a private sector job advising the industry she was charged with regulating.

Schapiro, 57, who was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for nearly four years, is joining Promontory Financial, a Washington-based firm whose clients include some of the world's largest banks and other financial services companies.

The appointment is likely to anger critics of the so-called "revolving door" between US regulators and their former charges. Senator Elizabeth Warren, among others, has blamed "regulatory capture" for many of the problems experienced by the financial services industry in recent years.

Promontory was started in 2001 by Eugene Ludwig, another former regulator who headed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Earlier this year, Promontory hired former OCC chief counsel Julie Williams.

The company is seen as a "shadow regulator" – advising firms on compliance issues. It received about $2bn advising clients during an OCC investigation into foreclosure abuses.

As I've written over and over, it's all rigged, folks.

It's all rigged.