The bitter war between Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature is escalating with top Republicans accusing Cuomo of improperly seeking to pressure a US attorney into indicting lawmakers being probed by the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption.
Furious Republicans told The Post that the pressure came last week in a little-noticed but extraordinary essay by former Cuomo chief of staff Steve Cohen, a onetime assistant US attorney, blasting Northern District US Attorney Richard Hartunian for failing to bring public corruption cases against members of the Legislature.
Cohen, a close Cuomo friend, wouldn’t have written the letter without Cuomo’s approval, the Republicans argue.
They called Cohen’s essay further proof of a plan by Cuomo, who last year tried unsuccessfully to help the GOP retain control of the Senate, to defeat as many Senate Republicans as possible in next year’s elections.
Cohen, the governor’s first chief of staff who held the same position during Cuomo’s four years as attorney general, wrote in “City & State’’ that nearly all of the recent corruption cases involving state lawmakers were brought by Southern District US Attorney Preet Bharara, whose jurisdiction doesn’t directly extend to Albany.
“When it comes to political corruption cases, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District — the federal prosecutor responsible for Albany — is simply not a player,’’ wrote Cohen. Cohen then went on to argue neither Hartunian, a President Obama appointee, nor his staff even possessed the expertise to bring such cases.
A Republican legislative legal expert said he was shocked by Cohen’s comments and called them “an attempt to pressure Hartunian, whatever the evidence may be, into bringing indictments against legislators once Cuomo’s Moreland Commission issues a final report.”
“For Cohen to write something like that is to have Cuomo’s guy sending the message to Hartunian to indict, whatever it is Moreland comes up with,’’ the legal expert continued.
He also said that if Hartunian was going to probe public corruption in Albany, he should start with “a pay-to-play investigation of state contractors who contribute to Gov. Cuomo’’ and look at the relationship “between the governor and real-estate developers enjoying very generous tax breaks courtesy of the law he enacted.’’
Republicans, meanwhile, also cited Cohen’s failure to mention in his essay Albany Democratic District Attorney David Soares, a Moreland Commission member who, even though he was elected pledging to bring public corruption cases, failed to bring any.
“If Cohen was interested in being fair, he would have slammed Soares, too,’’ said a source.
Cohen, a partner in the Manhattan-based firm Zuckerman Spaeder, denied that Cuomo or any member of his administration encouraged the attack on Hartunian.
“If someone reads the op-ed and the response is, ‘That’s a political message,’ that makes the point I’ve been making for years without promoting or encouragement from the Cuomo administration: Prosecution of corruption needs to take place in Albany,’’ Cohen continued.
The Moreland Commission issued an interim report last week claiming that corruption was widespread in Albany but it provided little evidence to back up the charge.
Senate Republicans, represented by former Southern District US Attorney Michael Garcia, have joined with Assembly Democrats in a legal challenge to the Moreland Commission’s efforts to subpoena the private business records of state lawmakers, contending the commission, an Executive Branch agency, doesn’t have the authority to probe the Legislature.
A Cuomo spokesman did not return a request for comment.
Cuomo Operations Director Howard Glaser and his lobbyist wife, Karen Hinton, a self-described foe of “big oil, big banks and other big bullies,” are being blamed for Cuomo’s three-year-long refusal to make a decision on fracking for natural gas in the Southern Tier.
Tom Shepstone, a prominent gas-industry consultant, noted in his weekly “Natural Gas Now’’ newsletter that several recent tweets sent by Hinton contained strongly anti-fracking statements including, “We all die someday. Why not die from fracking so the oil companies can make billions more.’’
“Hinton and her husband are as close to Cuomo as two people can get . . . Is it any wonder Cuomo has adopted his ‘just stand there’ stance?” Shepstone continued.