Why is the Media not Presenting Governor Cuomo’s Side of the Story? What are they Hiding?

MSM have not once presented Gov. Cuomo’s side of the story, either because they are afraid of the backlash, or because they are part of it. We have seen the interviews, we have seen actual PICTORAL evidence given to them, which is ignored, we have seen Rita Glavin state her facts while being yelled over by an agenda ridden “journalist.” We have seen Times Union journalists spend time trying to dox twitter sleuths, or say they have “theories” on who these people are, suggesting again they are being paid for by Cuomo’s war chest, or are former members of the Admin. The former members of the admin who are speaking are speaking outright and in their own names, and those working on social media are definitely NOT paid by Cuomo’s “war chest” nor are they bots. In the same way that people mobilized last year for Biden, or people in general volunteer for a campaign, so the same goes with Gov. Cuomo.

The Times Union

The Times Union, the Albany paper which has far too much power over NY politics, and has been pushing the anti Cuomo narrative from the beginning, originally painted accusers Brittany Commisso and Alyssa McGrath as poor single mothers who were forced to work weekend overtime for the Executive Chamber. From the released transcripts, we see that this overtime was highly coveted, and the assistants were requesting the time, getting upset when they were not offered the overtime hours.

The Times Union have a tape of Frank Commisso, the ex-husband of Brittany, accusing her of flirting and perhaps having an affair with Gov. Cuomo. According to testimony she was always trying to get the Governor’s attention, bringing him coffee uninvited, skipping the normal procedures. Brittany brings this up in her testimony, stating that there were rumors of an affair, and that the Gov. could say in his testimony that they were having a consensual affair/ flirtation but they were definitely not.  Of course, Gov Cuomo said nothing of the sort in his testimony. The Times Union has published interviews which show actions that differ from the AG report, and have tried to push other narratives which have proved to be red herrings, including one regarding the hiring of Trooper #1.  

In December 2020 another Times Union reporter, Ed McKinley, published an article and a series of tweets (see below) stating the real reasons Lindsey Boylan left the Executive Chamber, but when the harassment accusations started to have momentum, and the Times Union was at the very least encouraging and promoting the news, they made it difficult to find the article, and McKinley deleted all tweets related to it. When questioned, McKinley blocked the person questioning on social media. Why? What were they hiding?

As an aside, the anti Cuomo City & State also has far too much power in NY politics. Written by anti-Cuomo Zach Williams, it should be noted that Tripp Yang, the campaign manager for Tish James, Jumaane Williams, and Boylan, is on the Board of Directors of City & State.

CNN and the Firing of Chris Cuomo

CNN supposedly fired Chris Cuomo because he used his position to get information for his brother. Despite the fact that much of this information was already available, let’s look at the truth. First, CNN had a discussion with Chris months before, Chris apologized, and CNN accepted. And let us not forget CNN was very happy to “use” the popularity of Gov. Cuomo the year before for ratings. Yet CNN then suspended Chris anyway when his transcripts were released by AG James. There was no reason for James to release Chris’s transcripts. They did not provide any evidence either for or against Gov. Cuomo, but what releasing the transcripts did do was provide media fodder. They were considered newsworthy and took the news cycle away from the rest of the released transcripts, many which further proved that the AG report was flimsy and fraudulent, ignoring and disregarding key evidence when the evidence did not fit the predetermined narrative. Why report on accusers being caught in lies on tape, investigators coaching the girls, and behavior which would be questioned in the court of law, when they could instead create another media scandal, this time surrounding the good looking and very successful brother of Governor Cuomo?  

What hasn’t been widely reported is that on the Wednesday after his suspension, accuser Charlotte Bennett sent a tweet stating that CNN should do the right thing and terminate Chris, and the next day her lawyer Katz wrote a letter to CNN stating she had a woman coming forward who had her own sexual harassment allegation against Chris.  CNN then took the decision to fire Chris, despite not having any real evidence and not conducting any internal investigation.  Chris has stated he will be suing CNN and legal analysts say he has a good case.  Of course, the media is notoriously cutthroat, and many on CNN were vying for Chris’s time slot.  Others just seemed to have something against the Cuomo’s, especially Jake Tapper. In fact, just last week Tapper seemed visibly disturbed during an interview with lawyer Richard Roth after yet another DA decided not to prosecute Gov. Cuomo due to there being nothing criminal in his actions. The lawyer had to be politically correct but seemed amused as he explained to Tapper that a politician kissing someone on the cheek was not a criminal act. Tapper kept trying to pivot Roth, but he held his own.

Was CNN in on this? What is going on?  Because we ask this question – what information was Chris Cuomo able to ascertain from his colleagues that was not reported?  Isn’t that the REAL story?  The fact that there are genuine questions and motives with the accusers, and CNN refuses to report any of this?  Anderson Cooper did touch on Albany DA Soares postponing Cuomo’s arraignment after Albany Sheriff Apple filed a criminal complaint without the DA’s knowledge, siting that he found exculpatory evidence which was given to the defense.  MSNBC covered it a little bit as well, notably on Morning Joe and Rachel Maddow, but only the bare minimum.  Why?  What are they afraid of? What are they hiding? Have they extensively talked about Sheriff Apple leaking Grand Jury information to the NY Post?  And the request by Rita Glavin, Gov. Cuomo’s attorney, for AG James to open an investigation into this?  These leaks are a FELONY and very serious. Why hasn’t the AG opened this investigation? Is she involved?  One would think Gov. Kathy Hochul would demand this? Curious as to why she isn’t asking questions as the NY governor.  It would have also been an interesting campaign strategy when James was still running against her – but instead James stepped out of the race, stepping back into the AG race.  Another curious event.  (and suddenly everyone else left the AG race…)

Other Main Stream Media Outlets – CBS, NYT, WSJ

It is also interesting that CBS chose to have interviews with both Charlotte Bennett and Brittany Commisso, and yet there were major points during the interviews that differed from the AG report.  With Commisso, it wasn’t just the date changing, but obvious things such as whose idea was it to delete the original photos because they were blurry “because she was nervous after he groped her.” In the interview it was Gov. Cuomo, in the AG report it was Commisso. Why didn’t they ask her about this? Why didn’t CBS investigate Bennett beforehand?  Do journalists no longer believe in investigation? Why didn’t any of the networks question the AG, just blindly stating Gov. Cuomo harassed 11 women, when even according to the report he did not such thing. 

In March and April of 2020 both the NYT and the WSJ were given information regarding the accusers, including proof of a former false allegation from Charlotte Bennett. The person who researched this found the information easily enough. When it was offered, the press asked them if they were a part of the administration (they were not) and wanted to make THAT the story, instead of what was potentially explosive information, and which would have helped Gov. Cuomo. This information was also shared on social media, especially Twitter. Months later a Substack journalist Michael Tracey, someone who is most definitely not a traditional Cuomo supporter, was given the information, and he published:

• August 13, 2021: What The Media Hasn’t Told You About The Cuomo Debacle (substack.com)
• November 4, 2021: Unprecedented Abuse Of Power: What The Media Still Isn’t Telling You About The Cuomo Debacle (substack.com)

Of course, the NYT first claimed that the Cuomo admin gave this information to Tracey. The Admin retweeted it of course, but they definitely did not give it to him. When it was pointed out that this information was provided to them in the past, the NYT denied this. A number of Cuomo supporting twitter sleuths had the receipts and screenshots and tweeted them. The NYT deleted their tweets, not to the escape of Tracey and others on twitter.

Why Won’t they Report the Truth on Boylan?

We worry about these mobs, the mobs that forced the resignation of Suny Chancellor Jim Malatras. His crime was using the F word in an email regarding Lindsey Boylan. This email was written before the harassment allegations, before Covid and in regard to an internal matter dealing with Boylan – which should alert people to the fact that she was creating a toxic workplace before any of this. There is evidence with insane and scary text messages including ones with her daughter in clown face. These were shown buried in the footnotes of the AG report, and talked about by Rita Glavin, but the press refused to cover these. (Boylan is Working Family Parties, very left, married to a wealthy hedge fund executive and her latest tweets were rallying against President Biden and Hilary Clinton.) In a court of law, this evidence would be shown and taken seriously, so why is the press dismissing it?

Politico and the Clubhouse Coup

The press refuse to talk about the Politico article which had on tape the “Clubhouse Coup” which had prominent members of the NY Legislature WFP far left talking about a strategy to bring down Cuomo, (“it would take a mother f****** army”) and how these same members have been the ones most outspoken and have been keeping the pressure on others in the state government who have tried to be more reasonable, but in the end are afraid of the far left.

• Clubhouse politics: Democratic insurgents plot against Cuomo in digital space (politico.com)

One socialist paper used the opportunity right after his resignation to state they could finally move through with the policies that they wanted, and that now was the time, but another, the WSWS, rightfully called out the political undertones on what they called a “manufactured sex scandal”.

And most recently, the media jumped on the “AG James left the governor’s race because she is selfless and going after Trump” rather than the truth, which was that her numbers were low because many people were suspicious of her motives and did not think she had done enough for Trump while going after Cuomo. She campaigned on Trump, but everything she is doing now was worked on last year (mostly by the DA) and could be completed while campaigning. The people of NY woke up to this – one can see on comments on articles and on FB pages – not the usual Cuomo supporters, just average New Yorkers. Why isn’t the media reporting on this?

Fair Reporting

Dan Abrams, the former Chief Legal Analyst for ABC, has been reporting some facts on his show on the new politically unbiased News Nation, and we thank him. Interestingly Greg Kelly from Newsmax, obviously not someone who would be on the side of a moderate progressive Governor, has been speaking out for Cuomo and has spoken with his most ardent supporters – most who are people who don’t watch Newsmax, and until recently would have been the target audience of CNN and MSNBC.

The Daily News have published articles that support Gov. Cuomo, as has Newsweek. It was fascinating to read a recent Daily News op-ed with the headline click bait “An Errant Op-Ed, Rich Azzapozzi, Gov. Cuomo , and Tish James” in which they claimed that Rich Azzopardi, Gov. Cuomo’s spokesperson, had told mistruths in his own op-ed about the AG report. This was not the case. They stated that two comments were not true. One was about jail time if the admin spoke about the questioning during the investigation. This is in fact the law and was stated in each testimony. Interestingly none of the accusers seemed to take heed, while the Executive Chamber did. The other was a throw away comment regarding Melissa DeRosa’s shoes. No, he was not questioned about this as was revealed in the transcripts, but as he stated, it was hours of inane questioning – which it was, we read the transcripts ourselves- but it is immaterial, and he did mention it somewhere along the line to reporters. What should be taken from this article was this comment – “Much of what he wrote as he built the argument that Cuomo had been railroaded was and is true.” Quite telling…they know the truth, they agree Gov. Cuomo was railroaded..but let’s for PC sake just write this op-ed to go along with everyone else.

It’s interesting. What is the media hiding? Are they afraid? Are they in too deep? Are they part of whatever is happening ( to be discussed in another blog.) We the people need to all be asking these questions – not should Chris have been helping his brother (of course he should have, they are brothers and they are very close – and even if you believe Chris should have taken a leave of absence – and then we can give so many other examples in which these news channel have not acted with “journalistic integrity” – an oxymoron when talking about 24 hour broadcasting) – but what information was he helping with that they were not reporting – that they had the DUTY to report. Some of which was readily available. Let’s think about that. All we know is that after what we have seen over the last year, we have lost faith in the media and in our party, and for the sake of democracy and justice, something needs to be done.

For more details on each complainant and their allegations please go to the Complainants Page.