welcome to the show we are beginning
this with this story new york governor
andrew cuomo's attorneys going after the
investigation and the credibility of the
accuser who filed the first criminal
complaint against him listen to this
this woman's story which is stated as
fact in the report is
false
the documentary evidence does not
support what she said
okay we've got this story coming into
the state attorney general is now firing
back and so is accuser charlotte brennan
bennett look who's joining us new york
congressman andrew garberino and former
federal prosecutor jim trustee jim first
your take on the cuomo's team of lawyers
today what do you think
oh this is what lawyers do
you know if you pick apart individual
complaints here you've got a chance of
sowing some reasonable doubt the problem
for cuomo aside from other scandals that
he's going to be inviting into the story
is that there's just a critical there's
too much corroboration of too many
people for most of the citizens of new
york and elsewhere to ignore it and
pretend it's not real
you know we've got a new finding from
quinnipiac saying uh 70 percent say yes
he should resign that being new yorkers
saying that uh mr garberino also a
majority saying that he should be
criminally investigated you know your
response mr garberino to the state
attorney general saying that there's a
mountain of evidence corroborating what
the 11 accusers uh are saying saying and
also uh basically charlotte bennett's
team is they're saying there's 1100
citations to documents
audio recordings and evidence supporting
what these 11 women are saying what do
you say
well we we know that there was all this
evidence there's real time uh tracking
of this uh you know there were reports
there were text messages of some of the
accusers who sent it almost immediately
after uh being sexually assaulted uh by
by the governor so to say that there's
no evidence uh is ridiculous by his team
and and to talk about you know there are
there are district attorneys looking to
this there was a criminal complaint
filed today by one of the accusers uh in
albany county he's going to have his day
in court there's going to be a a jury of
his peers deciding whether or not he's
uh guilty criminally but politically gov
governmentally the governor uh he he's
done he needs to resign
uh there's there's no question about it
that's why i believe the 70 in the
quinnipiac is correct all i'm hearing
from everyone everywhere i go is i can't
belie believe he hasn't resigned yet
you know uh do we do we do we have jim
trustee back with us
okay let's stay with you mr garbarino
the victim who filed the first criminal
complaint she told investigators she was
shaking uncontrollably during the
interaction where she said that governor
cuomo groped her and she feared that she
would be fired if senior cuomo cuomo
aides heard that she had talked about
the this allegation that's about
retaliation that's the most serious
charge we're also one of the most
serious charges we're talking about here
right
absolutely and it's and i hate to say it
but it's it's no surprise i mean i spent
eight years in the state legislature in
albanian and everyone always talked
about you know you better go along with
what governor cuomo says or he's going
to come come out against you uh that's
why a lot of these women did not come
forward i believe right away because
they feared uh retaliation he he has
some very loyal people around him that
will do pretty much anything he's he
wants he says so it doesn't surprise me
uh that she feared for her uh for her
job it doesn't surprise me that a lot of
these women didn't come forward uh
sooner uh there was this was just uh
this was business as usual uh in the new
york governor's office
you know the team is trying to raise
reasonable doubt in order to keep
governor cuomo in power that's what
legal experts are saying we are now
seeing six district attorneys probing uh
andrew cuomo over the the findings the
criminal probes here that he sexually
harassed and assaulted 11 women women
including nine current and former state
workers sir
there was a lot of complaints today from
his team about the process of this the
state ag is saying he approved this
independent investigation and from the
beginning andrew cuomo tried to
micromanage and take over the
investigation only after he was
criticized for that did he back off can
you talk about that
well yeah i mean he was for when he when
he first started he was a po he wanted
to appoint the judge uh or judge his
husband he wanted to pick the people who
are going to investigate him it was uh
you know it's just like i said he wants
total control over everything that
happens uh and they talk about
reasonable doubt this isn't a a a
criminal trial right now this what what
the the state legislature is going to do
the state assembly they have an
impeachment proceedings so they don't
need uh
he doesn't need reason without that
that's not going to get him off you need
76 votes got it and it's not just this
uh they're looking into a lot of other
things so i think he's he's finished
yeah they're looking into the you know
the
yeah let's talk about this quickly
there's also an fbi doj probe into the
cover-up of nursing home deaths uh that
were reported to the government his use
of state workers to work and edit and
work on his pandemic memoir that he got
five million dollars for and also used
do using state health workers to do vip
priority covet testing of his family and
friends including his brother chris
cuomo okay let's watch the d.a in albany
talking about this asking the potential
victims to come out and reached out to
their team watch
for those of you who did not come
forward
but are now inspired to come forward and
cooperate in the criminal investigation
please reach out to our office
let's talk to jim trustee back about
this jim is back on the phone with us
former federal prosecutor do you expect
more women to step forward now jim what
do you think
i think there's a real likelihood
because he's had such a lengthy uh
career in politics that there's other
folks that just you know basically
decided out of personal reasons they
weren't going to step forward i i will
say this though liz i'm never in love
with the notion of prosecutors kind of
setting up tip lines for
old complaints it invites a lot of
mischief it tends to bring out some of
the nut cases that really aren't the
victims like the ones that are in this
report so it's kind of treacherous
territory but i think the bottom line is
you know governor cuomo has made a
calculation that he's going to go down
swinging and it's going to invite much
more
concrete evidence against him on a
number of fronts
we hear you may be more than just a tip
line and maybe women stepping forward
also this jim the aide who filed the
first criminal complaint against
governor cuomo uh saying that you know
he sexually assaulted her by groping her
she told her attorney she would be
willing to take a polygraph lie detector
examination and she would like the
governor to take one as well but cuomo's
team won't answer that they're saying
this is a ploy to get media attention
remember andrew cuomo said uh justice
brett kavanaugh should take a polygraph
test what do you what do you say to that
this is all you know there's also a
thing about retaliation i want to talk
about go ahead
sure yeah but on the first point there's
some delicious irony right that this is
a guy that was throwing out polygraphs
and and frankly there's a reason
polygraphs aren't admissible in court
usually it's because they're not
perfectly reliable
the funny thing is i mean if there's
somebody that could pass a polygraph it
tends to be a sociopath and and i wonder
how that plays out for the governor i
don't think anyone can rightly accuse
any of the complainants any of the
victims of dying for the limelight here
i mean i think it's very clear that that
was a major point as to why there's
delayed reporting that they didn't want
the attention of either the governor or
the public at large
okay you know by the way the a request
for a polygraph test was made by that
first uh the aide who filed a criminal
complaint back in march it's a
retaliation that is also violations of
federal and state law the retaliation
against the women where governor cuomo
and his team were basically
drafted an op-ed
you know attacking lindsay boylan
another accuser also releasing and
leaking her job personnel records to the
media
we've been reporting on this since it
happened
what do you think of those charges could
that stick
well you know what if they're not
independent charges and i think drafting
the op-ed would be a hard one to call an
independent criminal charge but if
they're not rising to the level of
obstruction there's still powerful
indicia of guilt in other words it's
just like when you run away from the
crime scene uh doing that type of thing
will will speak to any sort of fact
finder whether it's a judge or a jury
with with pretty compelling evidence and
one thing lizit really hasn't gotten
much play
is when they found out these reports
were being made the cuomo plan was to do
phone stings to try to set up the
complainants and get them to say
uh you know incriminating things or
things that hurt their credibility which
is pretty amazing pretty nasty concept
right that he'd get on the phone and try
to intimidate or trick these women into
saying things that would help his
eventual case against them and melissa
derosa characterized it as not working
well so that tells you these folks have
okay so a lot of tests
so that to you is indicative of guilt in
other words retaliation what you just
talked about too and retaliation that's
an example of guilt right final word jim
trustee
yeah absolutely look the whole picture
is a terrible picture and i guess one
last thing i'd say from kind of the
courthouse
perspective on these things you know liz
we're drifting into another scenario
that might sound like bill cosby where
we have individual late complaints of
sexual abuse and the big issue is going
to be are they heard together or are
they heard separately and so that'll be
interesting to see how that plays out if
there's charges
congressman andrew garberino and jim
trustee congressman you'll come back on
we'll give you the final word next it's
good to have you on with jim trustee
it's good to see you thanks for joining