ALBANY – Seven months after records were sought about Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s deal to write a book about his leadership during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Democrat is still keeping a lid on its financial terms.
Blame Covid, says the Cuomo administration.
“Thank you for your patience during this extraordinary time," Cuomo’s FOIL counsel and records access officer for the Executive Chamber wrote in the most recent letter to The Buffalo News that came, once again, without the documents requested last August.
Now, as a host of scandals swirl around the governor, some Democrats in the State Legislature have run out of patience and are demanding more information.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Cuomo’s book publisher, Crown Publishing Group, had stopped promoting the book, titled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.” The reason: that federal prosecutors are examining Cuomo’s Covid policies in nursing homes, including what State Attorney General Letitia James recently said was an undercounting of nearly 50% of nursing home resident fatalities from Covid.
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The publisher is also not doing any further reprints, and plans for a softcover edition have been scrubbed.
Cuomo first floated the idea of writing a book last July. On Aug. 18, the book deal was announced. Cuomo the next day refused to provide any details about the financial deal he struck with Crown, including the book contract or an ethics agency approval letter for the deal to proceed.
The cover of "All Things Possible" by Andrew M. Cuomo, which was released in 2014.
“You’ll see it on my financial disclosure," Cuomo said of the annual filing he and other state employees have to file with a state ethics agency.
That won’t be until at least May 15, assuming the deadline for reporting on outside income, stock holdings and other information isn’t pushed back until the late summer, as it was last year, because of the Covid pandemic.
Cuomo, by law, had to get a letter of approval to receive the outside income that the book deal would bring him. That came from the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, or JCOPE. The agency said it could not, by law, release the letter, but that Cuomo could make it public.
On Tuesday, six Democrats in the Legislature – who have previously called on Cuomo to resign in the wake of the scandals – wrote Cuomo demanding that he release all documents, including the contract, related to his book deal. They said they want to ensure that no violations of the state's gift ban law occurred.
Officials in Cuomo’s office last August said the ethics clearance was sought and obtained, but they declined to release it.
On Aug. 21, The Buffalo News filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law with Cuomo’s office seeking that ethics agency approval and any other records sent and received by Cuomo’s office to JCOPE. The request also sought records to and from Cuomo’s legal representative, Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, on the book deal.
On Aug. 28, Cuomo’s office responded that the request had been received and that it was looking for the records. On Sept. 21, Cuomo's office responded that it needed more time to find the records, and that it would respond again in October if more time still was needed. It also said the Covid pandemic could delay getting the information.
Since then, the administration has reported back to The News using Covid as part of the reason for not making any of the records sought available.
In 2014, Cuomo wrote a memoir that sold few copies. He made $783,000 on the deal.
A government watchdog Tuesday questioned why Cuomo’s office is not releasing the ethics agency letter. “They released the (ethics) letter from the first book. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t release it on the second," said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
The Albany Times Union last year reported disputes on the JCOPE board after Cuomo’s outside income was approved, noting that some commissioners want to have the final say – and not the agency’s staff, many of whom are aligned with the Cuomo administration – to be the sole decision makers on whether to approve outside income deals like the one Cuomo received.
In writing the book, Cuomo took advantage of his spreading national name recognition last year during daily news conferences on the Covid crisis.
But Bloomberg News recently reported a drop in sales since scandals began worsening for Cuomo, including accusations by several women, including former staffers, that he sexually abused him and for ongoing controversy over his order that required nursing homes to admit Covid-positive patients from hospitals and the subsequent under-reporting of how many residents of nursing homes and other adult homes died from Covid.
The state Health Department has since revealed – after James issued her report in January – that more than 13,000 such Covid deaths occurred.
Cuomo has dismissed calls from some lawmakers that he resign over the sexual harassment scandal or the nursing home scandal – or both.
