{"id":178749,"date":"2018-08-29T20:26:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T01:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/29\/oh-my\/"},"modified":"2018-08-29T20:26:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T01:26:00","slug":"oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/08\/29\/oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, My!"},"content":{"rendered":"
We now discover that, just before Andrew Cuomo ended the investigation of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.’s non-prosecution of Harvey Weinstein<\/a>:<\/div>\n

Last year, a political firestorm erupted when journalists revealed that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein\u2019s lawyer David Boies gave $10,000 to Manhattan District Attorney Cy<\/a>rus<\/a> Vance Jr.<\/a> in the months after Vance declined to prosecute the movie producer on sexual assault charges. Now, less than a year later, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has halted an investigation into the handling of the Weinstein case just as Boies\u2019 law firm gave Cuomo\u2019s campaign $25,000, according to state records reviewed by Capital & Main and Sludge.<\/p>\n

The controversies spotlight ongoing questions about whether law enforcement actions in New York are being inappropriately influenced by campaign donations.<\/p>\n

Amid explosive headlines about Boies\u2019 donations to Vance and the district attorney\u2019s decision not to prosecute Weinstein, Cuomo in March called<\/a> for the New York Attorney General\u2019s office to investigate the handling of the case, which revolved around accusations that Weinstein groped an Italian model.<\/p>\n

While Vance in May opted to reverse course and charge the Hollywood producer<\/a>, Cuomo declared that an investigation into Vance\u2019s original decision to not prosecute Weinstein was necessary because, the governor said, \u201cit is critical not only that these cases are given the utmost attention but also that there is public confidence in the handling of these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, BuzzFeed on Tuesday reported that Cuomo reversed himself in June<\/a>, sending a letter to New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood asking her to suspend the investigation for six months. The suspension effectively shields Boies from scrutiny of any potential relationship between his 2015 donation to Vance and Vance\u2019s decision not to prosecute Weinstein.<\/p>\n

Cuomo\u2019s June order came six days<\/a> after Boies, Schiller & Flexner gave $25,000 to Cuomo\u2019s reelection campaign, according to New York campaign finance records. In all, Boies and his law firm have given Cuomo\u2019s gubernatorial campaigns more than $245,000 since 2009.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Cuomo Flack is now claiming that they didn’t want to interfere with the Weinstein investigation.<\/p>\n

If you believe that, I’m sure that Rat Faced Andy Cuomo*<\/sup> has a bridge concession in Brooklyn that he wants to discuss with you.<\/p>\n

There was a debate tonight between Cuomo and Nixon, and it appears that this bit of creative finance did not come up. (Go figure)<\/p>\n

*<\/sup>Not my bon mot. Spy magazine, the same one that described Trump as a, “Short fingered vulgarian,” coined that one.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We now discover that, just before Andrew Cuomo ended the investigation of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.’s non-prosecution of Harvey Weinstein: Last year, a political firestorm erupted when journalists revealed that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein\u2019s lawyer David Boies gave $10,000 to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in the months after Vance declined to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[513,368,435,364,374],"class_list":["post-178749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-campaign-finance","tag-corruption","tag-crimes","tag-evil","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}