Empire of Fear  

The campaign of fear was so effective because of the clout Cuomo wielded. The entire state Democratic Party apparatus, seemingly in his thrall, gave him control over all the government’s levers of power — chiefly, money. And he made clear he would not hesitate to close faucets of funding to anyone who defied his will.

One mark of his towering dominance is that despite Attorney General Letitia James’s devastating report last Tuesday on his harassment of state employees, and President Joe Biden’s call for his resignation, and the resignation of top aide Melissa DeRosa, and another former executive assistant filing a criminal complaint against him, and gathering momentum in the statehouse for his impeachment… no one would speak to me on the record for this story.

Over the past few days, I made a few calls to askanim from around the state to feel them out. They begged me not to report on their stories, even without a name or identifying details. Each has a horror story of saying or doing something that triggered a phone call from the very top, a ten-minute harangue whose impression still lingers years later. Witnesses who were standing nearby still shake months later when recalling these incidents.

None, however, told me the state would be better off with Cuomo remaining.