The Cuomo administration claimed last year there were no records of its contacts with an anti-corruption panel involving the Real Estate Board of New York — just three months after a top gubernatorial aide ordered the panel not to issue subpoenas to the influential real-estate group.
The administration’s misleading account was made in writing to America Rising, a conservative PAC that had filed a Freedom of Information Law request in October for “any and all” communications between Cuomo staffers and the Moreland Commission panel about REBNY.
Just two months later, the answer came back that America Rising was wasting its time.
“Please be advised that the New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search but does not possess records responsive to your request,” Cuomo’s records officer, George Stiefel III, wrote in a response dated Nov. 19.
Actually, there were extensive contacts between the commission and Cuomo aide Larry Schwartz in August, according to an article in The New York Times last week.
“Mr. Schwartz, the secretary to the governor, telephoned one of the commission’s three leaders in a fury, according to four people briefed on the call. There would be no subpoena to the real estate board,” the Times reported.
Members of REBNY, who have donated $4 million to Gov. Cuomo since 2010, eventually turned over documents sought by the panel voluntarily.
Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising, said he was duped.
“This official correspondence from the governor’s office was a lie, either explicitly or by means of trying to find a clever way out of having to reveal damaging documents,” he told The Post.
A Cuomo aide insisted the administration wasn’t out to deceive anyone.
Logs kept by the governor’s office of phone calls show only who is being called by which official, not the topic of the call, the aide told The Post. So when the request came in for records involving REBNY, it was denied because the name of the group was not contained in the records.
Under the Cuomo administration’s system, every specific FOIL request for the logs would have been rejected.
“Nothing in the Times story contradicts the FOIL response,” said Cuomo spokesman Matt Wing.
Remarkable as it might appear, the administration’s actions may not violate the law.
Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, said the FOIL law was written so loosely that it doesn’t even specify how long phone logs have to be kept.
The executive chamber has a “great deal of latitude of how long they keep records,” he said. “They don’t keep this stuff — they get rid of it.”
But in this case, the administration admitted it had the requested records.
The 25-member Moreland Commission panel, formed by Cuomo in July 2013 to root out corruption in Albany, was disbanded by the governor in April.