Remember Humphrey Bogart as Fred Dobbs in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” — the prospector who thinks his partners are scheming to take his gold?
Well, Gov. Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are each doing a pretty good Fred Dobbs impersonation in their squabble over the $613 million extracted from JP Morgan Chase — New York’s share of a Justice Department-administered $13 billion settlement.
Under the settlement, the attorney general can distribute as much as 85 percent in any way he sees fit, so long as it is related to “ameliorating” those affected by current foreclosures and preventing future ones.
The governor apparently feels this gives Schneiderman too much power. A player for Team Cuomo likened the arrangement to “a giant member item to one person.”
Team Schneiderman has fought back, claiming the terms are similar to settlements AGs have negotiated over the last 15 years. That includes Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general from 2007 to 2010.
All this would be merely amusing — two big egos wrestling over a wad of cash — if it didn’t remind us that the millions they are fighting over came from a political shakedown of a successful business.
“If you know what’s good for you,” a paranoid Bogey says in the film, “you won’t monkey around with Fred C. Dobbs.”
That’s more or less what the governor and attorney general are saying to each other. What a way to run a state.