White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday strongly supported an independent investigation by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was accused of sexually harassing two state employees.
Pelosi, D-Calif., Called the allegations against Cuomo by Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan “serious and credible.”
President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Bennett’s allegations in an interview published Saturday in the New York Times that Cuomo had asked questions about her sex life was “incredibly uncomfortable to read as a woman.”
Bennett told the Times that the governor emphatically asked her last June, when was the last time he “ really hugged someone ”?
“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me and felt terribly uncomfortable and scared,” said Bennett. “And wondered how I was going to get out and assumed it was the end of my job.”
Bennett’s claim came on the heels of allegations made by Boylan, 36, who said the governor kissed her without her permission and jokingly suggested a game of “strip poker” on an official flight. Cuomo denies the claims made by Boylan, who had been a special adviser to him on economic development.
“We certainly believe that any woman who comes forward, Charlotte, Lindsey, should be treated with respect and dignity and be able to tell their story,” Psaki said at a White House press conference.
“And we will leave that process to the Attorney General to decide on the way forward,” Psaki said.
Pelosi said in a statement, “The women who have come forward with serious and credible charges against Governor Cuomo deserve to be heard and treated with dignity.”
“The independent investigation must be fair and respectful of all concerned,” said Pelosi.
Meanwhile, Cuomo’s leading backers are pausing and re-evaluating their support for him as the probe gets underway, people directly involved in fundraising told CNBC on Monday.
The statements supporting that investigation came a day after Cuomo’s ham-fisted attempt to hand-pick the people who would investigate these allegations was pushed back by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
James, who is a Democrat like Cuomo, has said she will oversee that investigation after the governor’s office asked her to appoint a private attorney to review the claims.
“This is not a responsibility we take lightly,” James said on Sunday. “We will hire a law firm, replace them as our firm’s attorneys, and oversee a rigorous and independent investigation.”
The governor’s office originally said that a former federal judge, Barbara Jones, who had worked with Governor’s top advisor Steven Cohen, would lead the investigation into him.
After a backlash to that announcement, Cuomo’s office said he would ask James, the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer, and Janet DiFiore, chief justice of the New York High Court, to handle the investigation.
James rejected that idea, called her office sole authority over the investigation, and demanded the power to get a subpoena.
The Attorney General quickly got her wish when Cuomo’s office collapsed.
Bennett told the Times that Cuomo asked her questions, including whether she was monogamous in a relationship, and whether she had ever been “ with an older man. ”
Cuomo is 63 years old. Bennett, 25, had at one point told Cuomo that she was playing football against one of the governor’s daughters in high school, the Times reported.
The governor said Saturday that he had never made any sexual advances against Bennett, “nor did I ever intend to act in a manner that was inappropriate.”
“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that, given my point of view, some of my comments made others feel in a way I never intended,” said Cuomo.
“I recognize that some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent that anyone felt that way, I really regret it.”