GOP wants blood after report Cuomo thwarted corruption probe

An explosive new report on Gov. Cuomo explicitly detailed how he blocked an anti-corruption panel that he appointed from following leads that might trail back to his administration.

A three-month New York Times investigation found that Cuomo’s top aide, Larry Schwartz, repeatedly intervened to prevent the Moreland Commission panel from looking into groups with ties to the governor.

Among the findings:

  • Schwartz ordered the commission to pull back a subpoena for a media ad-buying firm, Buying Time, that counted Cuomo as well as the state Democratic Party as its clients.

    “This is wrong,” Schwartz told one of the commission co-chairs, Onondaga County DA Bill Fitzpatrick, according to the Times. “Pull it back,” Schwartz instructed.

  • Schwartz, the powerful secretary to the governor, also called to complain when the commission drafted a subpoena to the influential Real Estate Board of New York, whose members are generous campaign contributors to Cuomo.

    The commission backed down and instead asked the board to hand over information voluntarily, which it did.

  • The commission got blowback from Cuomo’s handpicked executive director, Regina Calcaterra, when it decided to subpoena a “major retailer” to investigate whether its campaign contributions were connected to approval of a state tax credit.
  • Commission staff, particularly chief of investigations Danya Perry, suspected that Calcaterra was acting as a spy and tipping off Cuomo aides office to investigations.

    The distrust was so bad that panel co-chairs instructed Perry not to give Calcaterra advanced notice of subpoenas until they were about to served to the target of the inquiry.

  • Internal e-mails showed fury and frustration within the commission about meddling from Cuomo aides.

“The Second Floor [the governor’s office in the state Capitol Building] needs to understand this is an INDEPENDENT commission and needs to be treated as such,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

Amid the furor, Cuomo cancelled plans to attend a Bronx Democratic Party fund-raiser on Wednesday night.

When asked for comment, Cuomo’s office referred to its statement to the Times. “A commission appointed by and staffed by the executive cannot investigate the executive,” the statement said.

“It is a pure conflict of interest and would not pass the laugh test.”

Cuomo created the Moreland panel last July after the Legislature refused to pass ethics measures amid a string of indictments and convictions of lawmakers.

“Anything they want to look at, they can look at — me, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, any senator, any assemblyman,” the governor said at the time.

The commission was abruptly disbanded by Cuomo in March when lawmakers agreed to a watered-down version of ethics reform.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara is now investigating the actions of the governor’s office.

“New Yorkers cannot afford to have a crook in the governor’s mansion,” GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino said on Wednesday.

Democratic rival Zephyr Teach­out called for Cuomo’s resignation “if he knew that his top aides interfered with investigations of the Moreland Commission.”

Additional reporting by Aaron Short