Weeks after overseeing the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the country, New York governor Andrew Cuomo spent his spare time writing a self-congratulatory memoir that aged about as well as Jerry Sandusky’s pre-scandal memoir, titled Touched. Not only did American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic serve as Cuomo’s “Mission Accomplished” moment, advertised as “the riveting story of how [Cuomo] took charge in the fight against COVID-19” and implying a retrospective on a mass-casualty crisis––one that was, in reality, far from over. (New York faced another major outbreak spike shortly after it was published in October.) Fittingly, the book is now the root of another damning Cuomo scandal.
On Thursday the government-ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a 16-page complaint with the New York State Board of Elections alleging that Cuomo used his campaign to illegally promote the memoir, which was briefly a New York Times best seller. The group cited American Crisis as a potential source of “significant income” for the governor, writing in its complaint that the board of elections must launch an “immediate investigation” to find out if “Cuomo for New York converted campaign funds to personal use in violation of Election Law.” An October 11 campaign email, which Cuomo’s daughters signed onto, that featured a link to purchase the book is detailed in the complaint. Promotional social media posts are also mentioned, showing that the Cuomo campaign hawked the memoir alongside links to websites where viewers could buy a copy of the book has a back-cover retail price of $30. The campaign’s social media post about a promotional event with talk show host Andy Cohen is among those highlighted by CREW; Cohen can be seen posing with a copy of the memoir. “While Governor Cuomo said he was donating some of the proceeds to a COVID-related charity…it still appears likely he earned significant income from the book,” the complaint posits.
Additionally, CREW suggests Cuomo campaign funds may have been used to bankroll these promotional efforts. “Cuomo for New York spent $45,102 on the salaries of campaign workers between August 6 and October 30, 2020, as well as $7,400 on campaign consultants between August 26 and October 17, 2020,” the watchdog group writes. “Cuomo for New York further paid $12,467 to NGP VAN, a provider of ‘targeted email services’…between August 26 and November 3, 2020, and $378 to Mail Chimp for ‘blast emails’ between August 20 and September 20, 2020.” In a Thursday statement, CREW president Noah Bookbinder explained, “The law is clear that you cannot spend campaign funds for your own personal benefit.” A Cuomo spokesperson was contacted regarding the CREW complaint but they did not immediately respond.
A Wednesday New York Times report offered further information on Cuomo’s alleged memoir-related misconduct. According to the outlet, Cuomo was working to cement his book deal even as his aides endeavored to conceal the COVID death count of those who had died in nursing homes. As my colleague Joe Pompeo previously reported, sources familiar with the sum Cuomo fetched from his publisher, the Penguin Random House subsidiary Crown Publishing Group, believe the governor was paid in at least the low-to-mid-seven figures. (The Times offered that the total surpassed $4 million.) One of the Cuomo aides in question, Melissa DeRosa, reportedly worked on a July report that essentially insulated the administration from any wrongdoing in connection with the state’s thousands of COVID-19 nursing home deaths. In addition, sources who spoke to the Times alleged that Cuomo aides were tasked with writing up notes for the governor’s memoir and otherwise assisted in his writing process.
In response to the Times, Cuomo spokesperson Richard Azzopardi denied any “connection between the report and this outside project, period,” adding that “any suggestion otherwise is just wrong.” He also held that staffers “volunteered” to help with the book when they were off the clock. “Every effort was made to ensure that no state resources were used in connection with this project,” he said.
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