What happened to Andrew Cuomo the reformer? The guy who campaigned as the man to clean up Albany?
In his place was the fellow we saw this week in an interview with Crain’s New York. When Gov. Cuomo was asked about comments by US Attorney Preet Bharara that he would take “very, very seriously any suggestion” the governor’s office had interfered with the Moreland Commission’s work, the governor rejected the notion it was even possible for him to “interfere”:
“It’s not a legal question. The Moreland Commission was my commission. It’s my commission. My subpoena power, my Moreland Commission. I can appoint it, I can disband it. I appoint you, I can un-appoint you tomorrow. So, interference? It’s my commission. I can’t ‘interfere’ with it, because it is mine. It is controlled by me.”
Me, my, mine. These are extraordinary words to describe a commission we were told was independent and free to pursue whatever leads turned up, no matter where they led. At least, that’s what the governor told us.
At a press conference last summer, Cuomo promised “an independent commission with general jurisdiction and responsibility for all campaign finance, Board of Elections activities.”
Asked if that meant it might also probe his own fund-raising, Cuomo concluded: “It’s an independent commission that is free to investigate whatever they feel needs to be investigated on the merits.”
So now it’s official: Moreland wasn’t the public’s committee. It was the governor’s. And when it had served the governor’s purpose, it was stopped.