Former New York Gov Andrew Cuomo told Bloomberg in an interview that he might consider running for office again after he resigned last year amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment.
Mr Cuomo resigned after a report by New York Attorney General Letitia James detailed a series of sexual harassment allegations. But Mr Cuomo said he did not resign out of admission of guilt.
“I never resigned because I said I did something wrong. I said, I’m resigning because I don’t want to be a distraction,” he told Bloomberg in a phone interview.
Mr Cuomo said the attorney general’s office’s report was filled with errors, which Ms James’s office refuted in a statement.
“No one, including Andrew Cuomo, can dispute the fact that multiple investigations found allegations of sexual harassment against him to be credible,” a spokesperson said. “Only he is to blame for inappropriately touching his own staff and then quitting so he didn’t have to face impeachment. His baseless attacks won’t change the reality -- Andrew Cuomo is a serial sexual harasser.”
Bloomberg reported that Mr Cuomo has spent more than $2 million on legal fees stemming from investigations. At the same time, he deflected when asked about running for office again.
“I’m still focused on communicating what happened here. Because as a precedent, it has to be exposed,” he said. “Vindication is not the reason to run for office.”
Kathy Hochul, Mr Cuomo’s lieutenant governor, succeeded Mr Cuomo in the governor’s office. She faces multiple challengers including Rep Tom Suozzi and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Ms James was a candidate for governor before she dropped out to run for another term as attorney general.
Mr Cuomo accused Ms James of “prosecutorial misconduct,” citing his experience in the role Ms James now occupies. The former governor specifically cited the fact that four district attorneys did not prosecute allegations and a fifth dropped their inquiry.
But the district attorneys said they found the women who accused Mr Cuomo to be credible and Oswego County District Attorney Gregory Oakes said the decision was “not an exoneration” and said that the state’s statutes “fail to properly hold offenders accountable and fail to adequately protect victims.”
