New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said today he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal that fueled an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.
Cuomo said his resignation would be effective in 14 days.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him.
She will become the first female governor of New York.
The governor framed his resignation as one of political necessity given the firestorm surrounding his continued leadership, including an impeachment inquiry that he referred to as a “distraction” from pressing issues facing the state as it recovers from the pandemic.
“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Cuomo said. “And therefore that’s what I’ll do.”
The announcement from Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, came one week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments.
The 165-page report also found that Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.
In his speech on Tuesday, Cuomo, 63, acknowledged that some of his actions, including hugs, kisses on the cheeks and referring to women as “honey” or “darling” may have made women uncomfortable.
But he reiterated that he did not believe that he had committed any misconduct, denying the most serious allegations of unwanted touching and pointing to differing generational norms around workplace conduct as a reason that some of his interactions with women may have been misinterpreted.
“In my mind, I have never crossed the line with anyone,” Cuomo said. “But I didn’t realized the extent to which the line has been redrawn.”
His instinct, he said, was to continue to fight the allegations, and he believed that facts would eventually exonerate him.
But he blamed an increasingly polarized political system for creating a frenzy that made it impossible for him to fully explain his side of the story.
“This is about politics,” Cuomo said. “And our political system today is too often driven by the extremes.”
The report put increased pressure on Cuomo to resign, leading to new calls to do so from President Biden — a longtime friend — and other moderate Democratic leaders and allies who had withheld judgment until the report’s findings were made public, and leaving Cuomo with few, if any, defenders.
The fallout had left Cuomo increasingly isolated: His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned after concluding the governor had no path to remain in office, according to a person familiar with her thinking.
In the end, Cuomo followed through on the advice his top advisers and onetime allies had been offering: leave office voluntarily.
Still, he will remain the governor for another two weeks, which he said would provide time for a seamless transition of power to Hochul, who will take the reins of the state as it confronts an uptick in coronavirus cases.
Cuomo stepped down as he faced the specter of forced removal from office through impeachment and was poised to become only the second governor to be impeached in the state’s history.
Following the report’s release, the leaders of the State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, began moving to draft articles of impeachment and appeared to have enough support to impeach him.
The dramatic fall of Cuomo was shocking in its velocity: A year ago, the governor was being hailed as a national hero for his leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic.
This article appeared in The New York Times.