Cuomo vs. Christie: Whose Scandal is Bigger?

The Times has been all over Cuomo for interfering with his ethics panel when they tried to investigate people tied to him, and then disbanded the panel.

Cuomo hid for five days, then appeared briefly in Buffalo. He points to statements from the panel's head that their work was not interfered with.

And now, the USA for Southern New York is threatening to investigate if those statements were the result of obstruction of justice or witness tampering:

 

"Appeared Briefly in Buffalo" is a book or movie title.

And when's the last time you heard about Fort Lee?

 

I know it will be easy for people to scream, "They only focus on Christie's bridge deal because he's a republican!" but the reality is Christie will probably get more attention because people completely understand what he allegedly did.

It's rare when a "political scandal" is as simple as what people say Christie did. I think that's a big reason why it got as much traction as it did.

Is Cuomo seen as a realistic possibility to run in 2016 or is the nomination just going to be handed on a platter to Hillary?

 

. . not to mention that it's just the type of straw-boss, Northern Jersey-style crass pettiness we've come to expect from CC.

 

Right out of the Clinton playbook:

Times profile from 2010 on Percoco: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/nyregion/08enforcer.html?_r=0

 

Has it been alleged by anyone that Cuomo actually did anything wrong? It seems to me that Preet Bharara doesn't really have anything but a strong desire to get his name in the paper.

 

When you don't allow people to investigate you, it's a little hard to come up with any wrongdoing.

 

To initiate an investigation of someone would there not have to be a reason?

 

The reason was institutional corruption in Albany. It's so bad, the Governor appointed a commission to investigate it.

And, when they started to look at people close to the governor -- following leads unrelated to the governor, they didn't even know originally that the one firm had also done work for Cuomo -- he pressured them to stay away.

 

Who is making that claim and is there any evidence to back it up? I have not seen any.

FYI, Cuomo appointed the Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in state politics, according to him, as a way to leverage his push for ethics/anti-corruption legislation. In March, when the state legislature agreed to reform of the state Board of Elections and stronger bribery statutes (the law Cuomo wanted) he disbanded HIS investigation.

 

Did you read the original Times article that sent Cuomo into hiding?

 

Yes. I saw no evidence of wrongdoing by Cuomo with HIS investigation.

Here is what co-commissioner and Syracuse district attorney William Fitzpatrick (the co-commissioner in the story who was asked to pull the subpoena to the ad-buying firm) had to say in mid-April, not long after the Moreland commission was disbanded:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fitzpatrick/my-moreland-mission_b_5148143.html