The pressure on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo over sexual assault allegations reached the White House on Tuesday, with President Joe Biden saying that if the state attorney general’s investigation confirms the allegations against him, Cuomo should resign.
Biden made the comments during an interview with ABC News that will air on Wednesday. Biden said “yes” when asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos whether Cuomo should resign if the investigation backs up the women’s allegations, adding, “I think he’d probably end up being charged, too.”
“Coming forward takes a lot of bravery, so the expectation is that it should be taken seriously,” Biden said. “And it should be prosecuted, which is what we’re doing right now.”
Cuomo is accused of sexually harassing or behaving improperly against a number of people, including former staffers. Former employees have accused Cuomo of harassing them at work, including calling them by pet names, making objectifying comments about their looks, kissing and touching them inappropriately, and inquiring about their sex lives.
Cuomo is also accused of groping a female employee under her top after summoning her to the governor’s mansion in Albany late last year. He has denied sexually touching any woman.
Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly criticize Cuomo, said the governor kissed her on the lips without her permission and “would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms, and legs.”
When Boylan first accused Cuomo of abuse in December, some of Cuomo’s aides and supporters drafted an open letter criticizing her as part of a plan to discredit her reputation, according to the New York Times.
According to three individuals with direct knowledge, the letter accused Boylan of being politically motivated, according to the New York Times. Cuomo was active in the writing of it, according to one of the people who spoke to the Times.
The letter was never made public.
Cuomo’s office was contacted with a query about the Times article as well as Biden’s remarks.
The three-term governor has dismissed calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats, including New York’s two U.S. senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and has instead asked New Yorkers to wait for the findings of a state Attorney General Letitia James investigation.
Last week, James appointed Joon Kim, a former federal prosecutor, and Anne Clark, an employment discrimination attorney, to lead the Cuomo investigation. They have absolute subpoena authority and will issue a public report detailing their findings.
On Monday, one of his accusers met with investigators for over four hours.
Cuomo is now being investigated for sexual assault by federal prosecutors who are investigating how his administration treated data on COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes.
Tara Reade, a former member of Biden’s team, alleged that he groped and kissed her in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, accusing him of sexual harassment. Biden has dismissed her allegations, and a number of current and former Biden staffers have said that they have no memory of such a meeting.
As he prepared to run for president, Biden was chastised for not respecting personal space, leading him to release a video in which he vowed to be “much more mindful.”
