Cuomo Wanted Hand-Picked Investigator, Instead He Got The Biglaw Partner Who Sent His Aide To Prison

Somehow, I can't help but think this is a response to trying to mess with the AG's authority.

(Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

The nursing home data scandal may well still sink the Cuomo administration — though they’re sticking with “the numbers were still being audited” excuse because, hey, it worked for Trump for several years! — but mounting allegations of sexual harassment have understandably taken center stage over the last couple of weeks. After an initial power struggle, Attorney General Tish James has seized control of the investigation and decided to bring in outside counsel to lead the charge, choosing employment lawyer Anne L. Clark of Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C. and Joon Kim of Cleary Gottlieb.

Since the last time Cuomo had to deal with Kim was when the latter was at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and put Cuomo’s former top aide, Joe Percoco in prison on corruption charges, it’s safe to say General James is not messing around. There’s not going to be even a hint that she’s installing someone with any fear of crossing the governor’s office.

That, of course, wasn’t guaranteed. The governor initially sought to quell the uproar by bringing in former federal judge Barbara Jones of Bracewell. Jones last made big news for racking up entirely reasonable Biglaw bills in the Michael Cohen case shocking the mainstream press who get breathless over the idea of a $700/hour attorney. Jones would have approached the matter with all due seriousness, but Jones would have worked for Cuomo, not the AG’s office, and as we all learned from the Moreland Commission, whenever Cuomo’s office sets up its own ethics watchdog, it’s likely to shut down its own ethics watchdog if it gets too close. James and state legislators balked at that suggestion, prompting Cuomo to suggest a power-sharing agreement between James and long-time Cuomo political ally Chief Judge DiFiore, but James scoffed at the idea that she’d cede her legal authority to create an appearance of impropriety. In the end, the AG won the day.

Anne Clark is a renowned employment discrimination and general employment attorney. A former Skadden Fellow/Staff Attorney with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund focusing on employment matters, she brings 30 years of employment experience to an investigation into core employee harassment allegations.

Clark’s involvement would be enough to demonstrate that the state would not pull any punches in the investigation. The addition of Cleary’s Joon Kim may prove to be the cost of Cuomo’s aggressive procedural shenanigans.

Would James have necessarily added a former prosecutor best known for putting the man Cuomo considered “like a brother” in prison if she hadn’t suffered through a news cycle of Cuomo trying to undermine her authority? He basically forced her into not merely pledging a dispassionate, aggressive investigation but having to slam an exclamation point on the back of it in order to signal that his pressure tactics hadn’t compromised the independence of the review.

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Given the professionals involved, it won’t impact the substantive course of the investigation, but for a politician who thrives on posturing himself as “in control” of every event — potentially to his detriment in the nursing home matter — this is a symbolic defeat likely to embolden any state legislators still squeamish about the Cuomo mystique.

Let this be a lesson to lawyers everywhere, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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