| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | The picks are in to lead Attorney General Tish James' investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Joon Kim, the former acting U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and employment discrimination lawyer Anne Clark will take the reins. The investigation will cover both what the governor said and did, and how his office handled the complaints — after the attorney for one of his accusers and a high-ranking Democratic lawmaker charged the administration violated its own sexual harassment policies. Kim became the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan after Preet Bharara was fired from the post by then-President Donald Trump. Before that, he was a deputy under Bharara during a slew of Albany corruption cases, including one that landed a close Cuomo aide behind bars. As acting U.S. Attorney, Kim wrapped up an investigation into pay-to-play allegations against Mayor Bill de Blasio — declining to bring criminal charges , but making a point of saying publicly that the mayor did favors for donors. (Bharara called Kim an "excellent choice.") What will the nascent Cuomo probe look like? James offered a bit of a preview when announcing her appointments, saying investigators will issue and enforce subpoenas, conduct depositions of witnesses, pore over relevant documents and records, and analyze data. And at the end, we'll all get our hands on a big report detailing the findings, which James promised will be made public. IT'S TUESDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: EDurkin@politico.com and agronewold@politico.com, or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold WHERE'S ANDREW? No public schedule available by press time. WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability. ABOVE THE FOLD: "New York City will welcome high school students back into classrooms starting on March 22, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday , a major milestone in the city's sometimes halting efforts to resume in-person instruction for some of its one million students. At a time when instruction in some cities in the Northeast and many on the West Coast remains completely remote for high school and even some elementary school students, New York's decision to bring back high school students — a vast majority of them low-income, Black and Latino — will be viewed as an important precedent. The city's public school system is by far the largest in the country. Reopening high schools will be the first major task faced by the new schools chancellor, Meisha Porter, who will take over from the outgoing chancellor, Richard A. Carranza, on March 15. About half of the city's 488 high schools will offer full-time instruction for most or all of their in-person students, while the other half will offer hybrid instruction. The city will also restart high school sports for all students starting next month." The New York Times' Eliza Shapiro | | | | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TO JOIN AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION: Power dynamics are changing. "Influence" is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is our new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops, dispatches from across the country and new voices that challenge "business as usual." Don't miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | |
|  | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | THERE APPEARS to be no serious move towards impeaching New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a day after the state Senate's majority leader called on the embattled governor to quit. In the Assembly, where any impeachment proceeding would have to begin, the chamber's highest-ranking women issued a statement that echoed Cuomo's own arguments against resignation, a sure sign that there is not nearly enough support among the Democratic-dominated chamber's leaders to launch impeachment proceedings. In the statement, 21 women, all Democrats, wrote that, "Our democracy demands that we be diligent and expeditious in our search for truth and justice. This matter deserves no less degree of care." POLITICO's Bill Mahoney — Cuomo spent Sunday calling lawmakers to dissuade them from issuing statements calling for his resignation, even as more allegations of sexual harassment surfaced, several who heard from him told THE CITY's Josefa Velasquez. "GOV. ANDREW M. CUOMO's mother and sister broke their public silence and voiced strong support for their politically wounded family member as he faces mounting calls for his resignation amid sexual harassment allegations and a federal investigation into his administration's handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes. 'I have always had the utmost admiration for Andrew, and I still do,' said his mother, Matilda Cuomo, former first lady and matriarch of one of the most powerful political families in New York history. 'He is my son and I don't like what he is going through,' she said. 'Our family is all rallied around him,' said his sister, Maria Cuomo Cole. 'He has our 100 percent confidence.' The governor's mother and sister spoke exclusively to the Times Union by phone Monday morning from his mother's Manhattan apartment, where his sister was visiting. They offered words of support for their embattled loved one — but remained guarded when asked about the allegations against him. Cuomo Cole said the political maelstrom that has engulfed her brother has taken a toll on the entire Cuomo family, Albany's most famous political dynasty." Times Union's Paul Grondahl "THE PUBLISHER OF Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's book on his leadership during the pandemic said it had stopped promoting the title because of an inquiry into the withholding of data on the deaths of nursing home residents. Sales of the book, 'American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,' had already dramatically slowed as the governor found himself embroiled in overlapping crises of his own making, including a drumbeat of accusations about his inappropriate behavior toward younger women and his aides' manipulation of nursing home data. Gillian Blake of Crown Publishing Group said in response to an email from The New York Times that there were 'no plans' to reprint Mr. Cuomo's book or to reissue it in paperback, citing 'the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes.'" The New York Times' J. David Goodman and Jesse McKinley — "The talk among sources familiar with the deal is that the book sold for at least low to mid-seven figures, which is a blockbuster sum by industry standards." #UpstateAmerica: William Shatner will celebrate his 90th birthday with a special event at the "Star Trek Set Tour" exhibit in Ticonderoga in July. | | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | FORMER CITY health commissioner Oxiris Barbot said her warnings to Mayor Bill de Blasio were largely ignored during the early part of the pandemic and the city's delays in closing schools and mandating lockdowns "cost thousands of lives." Barbot, who served as health commissioner during the early months of the pandemic, will be one of the frontline medical leaders interviewed for a BBC special called "54 Days: America and the Pandemic," which will premiere on March 11. The documentary will be the first time Barbot has spoken publicly about her behind-the-scenes battles with the administration that ultimately led to her departure last summer. "There was a sense of, 'We have the best hospital system in the country, in the world,' ... this culture of 'We got it, we are the bomb, we're going to take this down, there is no virus that can conquer us,' but I know that the science was against us, that this was going to be an uphill battle," she told BBC, according to a preview of the episode. POLITICO's Amanda Eisenberg WHEN MEISHA Ross Porter showed up to an honors English class as a Black senior at Queens Vocational and Technical High School, the teachers thought she was in the wrong place. "Folks thought it was a mistake and moved me out," she said. "I went to my principal ... and he got me right back in there and was very clear that I belonged." It was one of Porter's earliest memories of institutional racism at city schools. Next week, she will become the first Black woman to lead the largest school system in America. And she says the memory of that day roughly 30 years ago, and how she learned to deal with it, is what helped form her philosophy on education. "That was when I first learned to advocate for myself and the students," she told POLITICO in one of her first interviews since being named DOE chancellor. "That's why I knew how important it is for student voices to be heard ... to advocate for themselves." POLITICO's Madina Touré GOV. ANDREW CUOMO has lost the ability to govern as scandals erode his credibility, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday — predicting that more damaging allegations against the governor will emerge. "I just don't see how he can govern effectively when fewer and fewer people believe him," de Blasio said at a press briefing. "And I think there's more information that's going to come out that will just make it harder and harder." De Blasio spoke after the state Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, said Sunday that Cuomo "must resign." The mayor said he agrees with the sentiments expressed in her "powerful statement," though he stopped short of directly calling for Cuomo's immediate resignation himself. "It's a sad situation in so many ways, but people have to believe you to be effective as a leader," de Blasio said. "Unfortunately, it's a situation where fewer and fewer people are believing what the governor's saying." POLITICO's Erin Durkin "FOR MOST of the pandemic, Chris Sloan, 41, has commuted by rail from Sayville, Long Island to his construction job in Manhattan. But when he got to the Ronkonkoma stop of the Long Island Rail Road at 5 a.m. on Monday, he was confronted by the consequences of the MTA's latest cuts to service: while three NYC-bound trains typically passed the station in an hour, he said, that number is now reduced to one. Unsurprisingly, the train was packed, with commuters pressed against each other in the aisles and unable to social distance for the 90 minute journey, according to Sloan. 'It's a mess,' he told Gothamist. 'Everyone was pissed off, but kind of together in the struggle with the quiet knowledge that LIRR screwed us all.' As the MTA began implementing its pandemic-driven service reductions to the LIRR on Monday, Long Island commuters from across the system reported similar woes." Gothamist's Jake Offenhartz "NEARLY NINE months after New York lawmakers, inspired by mass protests over police brutality, repealed a law that kept the discipline records of officers secret for decades, the New York Police Department on Monday began publishing some of the sealed information. The department released partial di sciplinary records for all 35,000 active police officers dating back to 2014 in an online database, searchable by name. Separately, officials posted redacted copies of more than 200 decisions by judges in administrative trials, going back to 2017." The New York Times' Ashley Southall ON THE TRAIL — Andrew Yang leads the mayoral field by a sizable margin in a new WPIX-TV/NewsNation/Emerson College poll. Among likely Democratic voters, 32 percent back Yang, followed by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams at 19 percent, attorney Maya Wiley at 9 percent, Comptroller Scott Stringer at 6 percent, and former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia at 5 percent. Yang led with white and Asian voters in the poll, while Adams was ahead among Black and Latino voters. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — COUNCIL SPEAKER COREY JOHNSON PLANS to launch his campaign for city comptroller at a Manhattan event scheduled for 11 a.m. today. He has hired strategist Lis Smith, who most recently served as senior adviser to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, and Avi Small. Small, who will serve as communications director, was most recently the Nebraska press secretary for the Biden-Harris campaign. As POLITICO previously reported, Johnson has also tapped messaging consultant John del Cecato, pollster Anna Greenberg, strategist Teddy Goff, and campaign manager Anthony Perez. Doug Forand, Marc Lapidus and Matt Rey of Red Horse Strategies — which is working on Eric Adams' mayoral campaign — have also been brought aboard. ABOUT LAST NIGHT: Mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia admonished New York City's record on gender in politics during a Zoom fundraiser hosted Monday night by former deputy mayor Alicia Glen. "You know, like I know, what some of our male colleagues prefer to overlook: Women do indeed run New York City," Garcia, Mayor Bill de Blasio's sanitation commissioner for nearly seven years, told the more than 80 people in attendance. "American women have been voting for over a century and New York City still hasn't sent a woman to City Hall. And I'm running as New York's governor is reminding us it is time to see more women in positions of power. In 2021 there is no right man for the job of mayor; it is long past time for a woman to run New York City." Garcia is trailing in the polls in the crowded Democratic field, but got a boost in a laudatory New York Times op-ed this week. Her team is hoping to soon qualify for public matching funds. Glen, who served as a deputy mayor through 2019, took a jab at de Blasio's 2013 mayoral campaign slogan as she introduced Garcia: "We need somebody who is not a person who is about a tale of two cities, but somebody who is writing the next chapter for a great and unified city," Glen said. Rep. Carolyn Maloney called into the fundraiser, which was populated with former female employees in the de Blasio administration. | | | | Did you know that POLITICO Pro has coverage and tools at the state level? All the state legislative and regulatory tracking, budget documents, state agency contact information, and everything else you need to stay ahead of state policy movement integrate into our smart and customizable platform. Learn more and become a Pro today. | | | | |
| | TRUMP'S NEW YORK | | "THE MANHATTAN district attorney's office subpoenaed documents from an investment company that loaned the Trump Organization millions of dollars for its Chicago skyscraper in a sign that the investigation into the former president's finances continues to expand, according to people familiar with the investigation. Prosecutors issued the grand jury subpoena to Fortress Investment Management late last year, the people said, as part of their wide-ranging investigation into former President Donald Trump and his company. Investigators' interest in how Trump and his company treated the Chicago loan is an expansion of an inquiry that encompasses multiple aspects of the Trump business." CNN's Kara Scannell | | AROUND NEW YORK | | — Lapses by the city jail system contributed to the deaths of three men from Covid-19, according to a draft Board of Correction report. — An abused 10-year-old boy was killed in Harlem, and his mother's boyfriend is charged with the murder. — The city is aiming to get all homebound seniors who want it vaccinated for Covid-19 by the end of April. — The Naked Cowboy was arrested at a bike festival in Florida. — Former Rep. Charlie Rangel endorsed Eric Adams for mayor. — The town of Riverhead is suing three companies it says are responsible for contaminating local drinking water supply wells. — Delivery workers are increasingly being targeted for robberies and violent assaults. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Kimberly Guilfoyle … Raj Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation … Charlie Gibson … Michael Kinsley is 7-0 … Faith Daniels … Sarah Swinehart … David Hume Kennerly … former Sen. James Buckley (Conservative-N.Y.) is 98 … Newsy's Andrew Rafferty … Neal Shapiro … Time's Haley Sweetland Edwards … Brooks Kraft … Warren Rojas … Gordon Platt ... Matthew Vogel MAKING MOVES — Aaron White is joining the Progressive Policy Institute as its new communications director. He was previously communications director for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.). (h/t POLITICO Influence) … Jonathan W. Knipe has joined the Real Estate Practice Group of Cozen O'Connor. He previously was EVP and general counsel for Silverstein Properties. MEDIAWATCH — "Teen Vogue Staff Rail Against New Editor-in-Chief's Past Tweets Mocking Asians: The digital outlet's editorial staffers on Monday said they sent a letter to Condé Nast bosses expressing multiple concerns with their newly hired editor," by the Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani — The NYT is bulking up its Texas presence, tapping Edgar Sandoval as San Antonio bureau chief, J. David Goodman as Houston bureau chief, Ruth Graham to cover faith in America from Dallas and Jamie Stockwell as editor. Announcement | | REAL ESTATE | | HOME PRICES in January — typically a slow month for the market — were up 14 percent over the same month the previous year, while sales jumped 24 percent, despite an unemployment rate that was almost twice as high. Demand for existing homes is so strong that the average residence is on the market for just three weeks, and inventory is at a record low after seeing its steepest drop last year since the data was first tracked in 1999. It all threatens to freeze broad swaths of the population out of the market, leaving millions of Americans in a less secure financial position, widening the racial wealth gap and forcing millennials, already lagging previous generations in building wealth and forming families, to fall even further behind "The dream of homeownership is out of reach for so many working people," said Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "Rising home prices and flat wages means that many families, especially families of color, may never be able to afford their first home." Brown, who insists on calling his panel the "Senate Banking and Housing Committee," vowed that these issues will be a top priority in the months ahead as the country struggles to recover from the pandemic-induced recession. POLITICO's Katy O'Donnell
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