Cuomo Announces Resignation Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations, Dodges Nursing Home Scandal

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said he would step down in 14 days after an searing investigation found he had sexually harassed nearly a dozen women. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will become the first woman to serve as governor of New York.

Though Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced plans to resign, he still faces legal threats from ongoing criminal investigations and from the civil battle that at least one of his accusers has vowed to pursue.

After the New York state attorney general released a report last week that found the governor had sexually harassed 11 women, five prosecutors indicated that they would look into the governor’s behavior within their districts. And late last week, one of his accusers, Brittany Commisso filed a criminal complaint with the Albany sheriff’s office, which has said it too is looking into Mr. Cuomo’s behavior.

It is not clear whether the Albany prosecutor, David Soares, or any of the other four prosecutors who have requested investigative materials from Ms. James will charge the governor. If they were to do so, they might bring charges of forcible touching or sexual abuse in the third degree, both misdemeanors.

But legal experts have said that in some ways the threat of criminal prosecution constituted a political threat more than it did a legal one. Mr. Cuomo’s resignation pledge may change that equation.

Cuomo was somehow still smug in his delivery of his resignation.

It seems justice is finally going to be served to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. State Attorney General Letitia James’ report detailing Cuomo’s record as a serial sex-harasser delivered what may be the death blow to his time in office, forcing the desperate Love Gov to resign or suffer the indignity of impeachment.

Yes, it’s great to watch a man whose thuggish character was apparent throughout his tenure finally being called to account. But there’s something troubling about the way Cuomo is being hustled out of office: Obscured amid the details about his gross behavior and the way his aides and liberal feminist enablers tried to discredit the victims is the fact that Cuomo remains responsible for the deaths of perhaps thousands of elderly New Yorkers during the early months of the pandemic — and for his administration’s ongoing, illegal coverup of the numbers highlighting that fact.

Even as critics like Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean courageously spoke out about the issue, the governor spent most of 2020 as a national idol, venerated by the mainstream media for what President Joe Biden called the “gold standard” for coronavirus crisis management. The nation was riveted by his daily press briefings; he actually won a special Emmy for them.

It was not until James issued a report in January stating Cuomo underestimated the number of nursing-home deaths by as much as 50 percent that he began to feel any real heat. His problems worsened when an aide admitted his staff had deliberately hidden the true number of deaths to shield Team Cuomo from scrutiny. And, as The Post noted last week, the coverup hasn’t even ended yet, as the state continues to stall on releasing documents about his COVID record.

Does it matter which issue applies the coup de grâce, so long as the story ends with Cuomo being sent packing in disgrace?

It does. As awful as his treatment of the 11 accusers may be, the needless additional deaths of hundreds or thousands in nursing homes must be considered an even worse crime. If the governor is allowed to skate for his infamous March 25, 2020, order forcing nursing homes to take in COVID patients, and his subsequent coverup, then no one should pretend justice is being done. The families of those who died as a result of his arrogant stupidity and willful ignorance deserve closure for what happened to their loved ones.