Cuomo aide files criminal complaint as governor’s lawyer attacks investigation – as it happened

We’re closing our live politics coverage for this evening. It’s a Friday in August, but there’s been a lot of news. An updated list of today’s highlights:

• A woman who accused Cuomo of groping her has filed a criminal complaint against the New York governor. The state government employee filed the complaint in Albany county, where the district attorney’s office has been conducting a criminal investigation of Cuomo’s alleged harassment.
  
  
• Cuomo’s personal lawyer claimed the investigation by the New York attorney general’s office was conducted unfairly. At a press conference this afternoon, attorney Rita Glavin said investigators, who concluded the governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women, approached their work with a “predetermined narrative” about Cuomo’s guilt. New York attorney general Letitia James once again defended the investigation, noting Cuomo himself had initially asked her to conduct it.
• Joe Biden celebrated the July jobs report, which showed the US economy added 943,000 jobs last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 5.4%. “What is indisputable now is this: the Biden plan is working. The Biden plan produces results, and the Biden plan is moving the country forward,” the president said.
• But the president also warned that the country’s hard-won economic progress could be lost unless more Americans get vaccinated. Biden’s warning came as the country experiences a surge in coronavirus cases among unvaccinated Americans as the Delta variant continues to spread. “America can beat the Delta variant, just as we beat the original Covid-19,” Biden said. “We can do this. So wear a mask when recommended. Get vaccinated today.”
• Half of all Americans are now fully vaccinated, the White House Covid-19 data director said. There has been an uptick in vaccinations over the past couple of weeks, as the US confronts the latest surge in cases.
• The Biden administration extended the freeze on federal student loan payments until January 2022, but said that there would be no more extensions.
• Florida marked its single-day record for new coronavirus cases, and accounted for 19% of all new cases nationwide on Thursday, despite containing only 6.5% of the US population, the Miami Herald reported. The continuing increase in cases comes as Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis spent the week feuding with the Biden administration and baselessly blaming the rise in cases on migrants at the US’ southern border.

More context on the GOP claim about Covid and migrants at the southern border

It was a baseless claim that Florida governor Ron DeSantis repeated: “covid-infected migrants,” he alleged, were to blame for the increase in coronavirus cases across the United States.

Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero, the author of Hatemonger, a book about Trump adviser Stephen Miller, puts this Republican rhetoric in context.

Florida reports record-breaking daily number of coronavirus cases

The Miami Herald has some stark new statistics about the increase in coronavirus cases in Florida, where the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has been publicly feuding with the Biden administration over public health measures, and also baselessly blamed the increase in coronavirus cases in the US on “Covid-infected migrants” at the southern border.

• Florida reported 22,783 new coronavirus cases from Thursday, which is 1,100 cases higher than the state’s previous single-day record.
• Florida contains 6.5% of the U.S. population, but accounted for nearly 19% of new cases on Thursday,
• In the past month, the seven-day average of new cases increased 664%.

Read the Miami Herald’s full coverage here:

New York state attorney general Letitia James defends integrity of Cuomo sexual harassment investigation

After comments at a press conference by lawyers for New York governor Andrew Cuomo, the state’s attorney general released a statement defending the rigor and integrity of the investigation, and noting that Cuomo himself had initially asked her to investigate the allegations against him, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Vaccination form for federal workers adds penalties for lies

Federal employees who need to certify their vaccination status under a new policy instituted by President Joe Biden intended to encourage Covid-19 shots will face disciplinary action and potentially criminal prosecution if they lie on the form, the Associated Press reports.

The Biden administration on Friday unveiled the attestation form that employees will need to fill out confirming whether they have been fully vaccinated against the virus, adding legal teeth to the president’s mandate. Federal employees won’t be following the honor system but will instead be required to acknowledge that making a “knowing and willful false statement on this form can be punished by fine or imprisonment or both.”

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the form which was distributed Friday to agency leadership and points of contact for Covid safety protocol implementation.

Fully vaccinated Kansas congresswoman tests positive for Covid-19

Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat, said in a statement to the Kansas City Star that her symptoms were mild, and that she is “incredibly grateful” for the vaccine.

“I know things could have been much worse for me without it,” Davids said.

Biden administration extends student loan freeze until January 2022, calls it ‘final’

The pandemic-related pause on federal student loan repayment, interest, and collections has been extended until 31 January 2022, but will not be extended after that, the Biden administration announced today.

Biden’s education secretary called the extension the “final” one, and a press release from the department noted, “The Department believes this additional time and a definitive end date will allow borrowers to plan for the resumption of payments and reduce the risk of delinquency and defaults after restart.”

Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for several additional months of delay, into March 2022, Politico education reporter Michael Stratford noted.

Guardian Politics Weekly Podcast: The Republicans confusing the vaccine effort

The resurgence of the pandemic, owing to the much more transmissible Delta variant, has convinced many people who were once hesitant to get the coronavirus jab. However, some are blaming mixed messages from Republican lawmakers for causing confusion and apathy. So what should local and state politicians be doing?

Jessica Glenza talks to Jonathan Freedland in our Politics Weekly podcast.

The press conference with Andrew Cuomo’s lawyers has now concluded, and that’s all from me for today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• A woman who accused Cuomo of groping her has filed a criminal complaint against the New York governor. The state government employee filed the complaint in Albany county, where the district attorney’s office has been conducting a criminal investigation of Cuomo’s alleged harassment.
  
  
• Cuomo’s personal lawyer claimed the investigation by the New York attorney general’s office was conducted unfairly. At a press conference this afternoon, attorney Rita Glavin said investigators, who concluded the governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women, approached their work with a “predetermined narrative” about Cuomo’s guilt. New York attorney general Letitia James has denied all claims that the investigation was politically motivated and has consistently defended the credibility of the independent investigators.
• Joe Biden celebrated the July jobs report, which showed the US economy added 943,000 jobs last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 5.4%. “What is indisputable now is this: the Biden plan is working. The Biden plan produces results, and the Biden plan is moving the country forward,” the president said.
• But the president also warned that the country’s hard-won economic progress could be lost unless more Americans get vaccinated. Biden’s warning came as the country experiences a surge in coronavirus cases among unvaccinated Americans as the Delta variant continues to spread. “America can beat the Delta variant, just as we beat the original Covid-19,” Biden said. “We can do this. So wear a mask when recommended. Get vaccinated today.”
• Half of all Americans are now fully vaccinated, the White House Covid-19 data director said. There has been an uptick in vaccinations over the past couple of weeks, as the US confronts the latest surge in cases.

Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

The lawyers are now taking questions from reporters, and one journalist asked Andrew Cuomo’s attorneys to respond to the allegations from a state trooper that he repeatedly touched her inappropriately.

“The governor will address that allegation himself,” Cuomo’s personal attorney, Rita Glavin, told reporters.

Glavin did not provide a timeline on when Cuomo might respond to those allegations, but the attorney said the governor “wants to do it soon”.

Glavin also claimed that Cuomo wanted the woman on his security detail for the sake of gender diversity. According to the report from the New York attorney general’s office, the trooper was hired before she met the qualifications to join the governor’s detail because he took a liking to her after they briefly met at an event.

When asked if the trooper is still assigned to the governor’s detail, Glavin said that she was, although she later said she was not sure whether the trooper had been reassigned since the release of the report.

Asked how officials were guaranteeing that the trooper and Cuomo’s other accusers were not being mistreated, Glavin said, “The whole world is watching right now. People are not going to be retaliated against by Governor Cuomo.”

Andrew Cuomo’s personal attorney, Rita Glavin, closed her prepared remarks by claiming the governor had been “ambushed” by investigators.

She said the investigation had been “one-sided” and that Cuomo had not been treated fairly.

Again, New York attorney general Letitia James has denied all claims that the investigation was politically motivated, consistently defending the credibility of the independent investigators.

Andrew Cuomo’s personal attorney, Rita Glavin, specifically took issue with the allegation that he groped an executive assistant at the governor’s mansion last year.

“This woman’s allegation, as stated as fact in this report, is false,” Glavin said.

Glavin presented a timeline to support her claim that the groping incident could not have occurred on the day named by the executive assistant, which was November 16, 2020.

But here’s what the report from the New York attorney general’s office says in a footnote about the account from the executive assistant: “Executive Assistant #1 did not remember the exact date of the incident, but recalled that it was around when she was tasked with photographing a document, and provided a copy of the photograph to us that was dated November 16, 2020.”

That state government employee has now filed a criminal complaint against Cuomo with the Albany county sheriff’s office.

Attorney Paul Fishman has now turned things over to Andrew Cuomo’s personal attorney, Rita Glavin.

Glavin began her comments with what appeared to be a prepared statement, in which she said, “I’m a former federal prosecutor, and I know the difference between putting together a case against a target, versus doing independent fact-finding with an open mind. There has been no open-minded fact-finding here.”

The lawyer accused investigators of conducting their work with a “predetermined narrative” about whether the governor had sexually harassed his employees.

“Here, instead of acting as independent fact-finders, the investigators acted as prosecutors, judge and jury,” Glavin said, after the press conference briefly paused because of technical difficulties.

Cuomo’s team has previously made the argument that the investigation was politically motivated, but New York attorney general Letitia James has consistently denied those claims.

“There were attempts to undermine and to politicize this investigation, and there were attacks on me as well as members of the team, which I find offensive,” James said on Tuesday.

“And our focus again should be on the bravery and the courage of these 11 women, and of the others who came forward. These allegations were substantiated.”

Attorneys representing Andrew Cuomo are now holding a press conference about the investigation that found the New York governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women.

Attorney Paul Fishman began the press conference by criticizing the office of New York attorney general Letitia James for not providing the governor’s team with advance notice of the investigation’s findings before the report was made public, as the lawyers had requested.

Fishman also disputed investigators’ conclusion that the governor’s office retaliated against Lindsey Boylan after she came forward with her harassment allegations.

A new found found that 7 in 10 New Yorker voters believe Andrew Cuomo should resign after an investigation found that the governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women.

According to the Quinnipiac University survey, 70% of New York voters think Cuomo should step down, while 25% believe the Democratic governor should remain in office.

That 70% of voters who say Cuomo should resign include 57% of Democrats, 88% of Republicans and 76% of independents.

In comparison, just 43% of New York voters said Cuomo should resign back in March, after several women had come forward with their allegations but before the findings of the investigation were announced.

If Cuomo does not resign, 63% of New York voters now say that the governor should be impeached and removed for office. The New York state Assembly’s judiciary committee said yesterday that its impeachment inquiry is “nearing completion,” meaning articles of impeachment could soon be filed.