Despite claims to the contrary, CNN host Chris Cuomo helped do damage control for his brother Andrew as the disgraced New York governor was dealing with sex-pest scandal, texts released by NY Attorney General Letitia James show.
Cuomo, who had supposedly promised not to cover his brother on the air in an agreement with CNN that fell by the wayside during the Covid-19 pandemic, apparently spent much of his time over the past year struggling to cover up for Andrew’s alleged sexually harassing behavior, according to messages AG James released on Monday.
The CNN talking head texted back and forth dozens of times with Cuomo’s chief aide Melissa DeRosa and even used the network’s resources to dig up “dirt” on women who’d accused Andrew of harassment, despite Chris’s repeated insistence he was not “closely advising” his brother and had only “irregular contact” with DeRosa.
Indeed, his involvement with DeRosa went deep enough that he would ask her to “please let me help with prep” to get Andrew ready for his next public appearance, telling her “We are making mistakes we cant [sic] afford” and even expressing unease about chatting with her behind the backs of the CNN brass and his brother’s other staff.
“I panic every f***ing time I see your name,” he texted DeRosa in another comment after returning an annotated version of a lengthy, awkward mea culpa apparently penned by his brother.
The former governor was officially denounced as a sex pest who’d harassed 12 women, with “overwhelming evidence,” in a report released last week. He resigned in August, swamped from one side with sexual harassment allegations and from the other with accusations of negligent homicide regarding his treatment of senior citizens held in state nursing homes during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A misdemeanor complaint alleging forcible touching was filed against him last month and a probe into his lucrative book deal is reportedly underway, complete with allegations that he misused his office resources to write the self-adulatory tome – focused on the “leadership lessons” he learned during the pandemic – for free.
Howard Zucker, the state healthcare commissioner responsible for the care home policy that allegedly led to tens of thousands of deaths, resigned in September. That left lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul as governor and highest-ranking holdover from Cuomo’s tenure in Albany.