Cuomo helped create letter attacking credibility of his first accuser

Back in December when accuser Lindsey Boylan posted some comments on Twitter critical of Gov. Cuomo, he and his team began drafting a response. Several drafts of the letter were completed with input from the governor. The idea was to round up as many women in the administration as possible to sign it.

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The letter was a full-on attack on Ms. Boylan’s credibility, suggesting that her accusation was premeditated and politically motivated. It disclosed personnel complaints filed against her and attempted to link her to supporters of former President Donald J. Trump…

The initial idea, according to three people with direct knowledge of the events, was to have former Cuomo aides — especially women — sign their names to the letter and circulate it fairly widely.

Multiple drafts were created, and Mr. Cuomo was involved in creating the letter, one of the people said. Current aides to the governor emailed at least one draft to a group of former advisers. From there, it circulated to current and former top aides to the governor…

The draft extensively disparaged Ms. Boylan and accused her of using her claims for “political retribution.”

The letter pointed out that Ms. Boylan’s campaign consultant also represented a political adversary of the governor’s, and that Ms. Boylan was “supported by lawyers and financial backers of Donald Trump: an active opponent of the governor.”

The connection to Trump seems like a stretch. From what I can see Boylan is a pretty far left progressive. In fact she listed impeaching Trump one of her top campaign messages in 2020. The idea that she is secretly launching an anti-Cuomo smear on behalf of Trump is pure fantasyland.

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In any case, the letter attacking Boylan was never released, possibly because after her initial statements on Twitter, she seemed to go quiet. In fact, one of her tweets on the topic from December said she had no interest in talking to journalists:

But two months later Boylan had changed her mind and wrote a lengthy post on Medium detailing allegations of sexual harassment by Cuomo which led her to eventually leave her job. CNN reported yesterday that Boylan met with investigators over the weekend:

Investigators in the New York Attorney General’s Office met with Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly accuse New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, for more than three hours over the weekend, a source with direct knowledge of the conversation told CNN on Tuesday.

And while Cuomo is officially going about his business, CNN reported the morale inside his camp is at rock bottom:

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As the investigation is underway, the mood inside Cuomo’s executive chamber is “completely demoralized,” a source familiar with the office told CNN Tuesday.

“The feeling there is it’s just a matter of time before the clock runs out,” said the source, meaning that Cuomo could be forced out of office; or that he may not be able to run for a fourth term.

Despite this, polls show about half of New Yorkers aren’t ready for Cuomo to resign. In keeping with that, most of the comments on the NY Times story about his efforts to dismiss Boylan suggest he should hold out. Democrats aren’t especially eager to believe Boylan.

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