Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday Gov. Andrew Cuomo should face criminal charges, predicting the embattled governor will eventually step down in the wake of a scathing sexual harassment probe by Attorney General Letitia James that found he “violated” state and federal laws.
“If you assault a woman, you do something against her will sexually, that’s criminal,” de Blasio said, when asked on CBS Wednesday morning if the Democratic chief executive should be charged criminally.
“The Albany County District Attorney’s looking at that, and I think he should be charged.”
De Blasio’s answer came after Albany County District Attorney David Soares said Tuesday that his office is opening a criminal investigation into Cuomo, after a report released by James concluded that he sexually harassed 11 women, violating state and federal law.
“We are conducting our own separate investigation,” Soares said on “NBC Nightly News.”
De Blasio — who on Tuesday said Cuomo should resign following the release of the Attorney General’s damning probe — anticipated the governor would “ultimately” heed growing calls to step aside before facing criminal charges or impeachment.
“I think, ultimately, he will have to resign, either because of a prosecution, wherein he makes some deal around giving up his office, or because an impeachment is imminent,” de Blasio said on “MSNBC’s Morning Joe.”
The mayor likened the circumstances to those of 2002 when Cuomo ditched his gubernatorial campaign when he realized he wouldn’t win it.
“In 2002, he ran for governor. When it looked like he wasn’t going to win that primary, he got out of town before the election happened,” de Blasio recalled Wednesday morning. “He literally pulled out of the election rather than suffer defeat. So I think that is a very likely scenario here.”
But in the immediate aftermath of the scathing Attorney General investigation’s release, the governor took an obstinate, defiant position.
In response to the report, the governor, in a bizarre pre-recorded video, on Tuesday denied wrongdoing and said he wouldn’t resign. He also claimed that some of his sexual harassment was in fact misinterpreted by women staff members due to cultural and generational divides between he and them.
De Blasio scoffed at the defense.
“Putting your hand up a woman’s shirt and touching her breast is not generational,” he said on “CBS This Morning.”
“I know plenty of guys who are older who would never in a million years do that,” he added. “Talking to 20-something year-old woman, asking if they’d date an older guy, and then leering at them — this is not acceptable behavior.”