Andrew Cuomo, who used to be governor of New York, says that the investigations of former president Donald Trump by grand juries in his state and in Georgia are driven by politics.
Last Thursday, Cuomo said these things on the WABC 770 talk radio show “The Cats Roundtable.” Cuomo is a Democrat who quit in disgrace in 2021 after being accused of sexual misconduct. As reported by host John Catsimatidis, the ex-governor said he didn’t understand why Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was “putting so much emphasis” on Trump’s hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Cuomo noted that a suspicious public “doesn’t believe anyone,” and that the public’s cynicism is “just confirmed” when prosecutors bring political accusations.
I don’t imagine a prosecutor who is a Democrat would go after a Republican for no reason. I don’t think that a Republican prosecutor going after a Democrat is a coincidence. He then said, “People in this country think it’s all about politics.” And I think that makes people more cynical, which is the worst thing for our political system right now.
“It’s just a coincidence that Bragg, Tish James, and Georgia are all attacking Trump,” Cuomo stated sarcastically. It was just a chance thing, you know.
People say that Bragg, a progressive Democrat who took office in January and hasn’t gone after a number of crimes, is thinking about pressing charges against the former president in the hush money affair. Trump alleged on Truth Social over the weekend that he would be detained on Tuesday by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for paying porn star Stormy Daniels hush money in 2016. A lot of news stories had said that Bragg was planning to charge him with charges related to the Stormy Daniels case.
But Tuesday passed and no charges were brought. It is not apparent if the office of the district attorney was intimidated, which may have delayed down the procedure.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, told Congress in 2019 that during the 2016 campaign, he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) $130,000 to keep her quiet about an affair she said she had with Trump in 2005. Cohen told lawmakers that Trump paid him back in monthly installments after he pled guilt and did time for the alleged payment.
No one knows what, if any, charges are being looked at by Bragg’s office against Trump. The prosecution in the Cohen case says that the monthly payments were recorded as legal costs by the Trump Organization in a way that wasn’t true. In the state of New York, it is a crime to deliberately change business records. In the Trump case, prosecutors must show that there was “intent to defraud” and that the action was done to help with another crime in order to make it a misdemeanor.
This week, Cuomo said on a talk radio broadcast, “You can indict a ham sandwich,” meaning that he thought Trump will be charged. I’m sure they’ll be charged.