
New York agrees to settle lawsuit with ex-aide who accused Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment
The former aide, Brittany Commisso, had sued Cuomo and the state, alleging sexual harassment from the then-governor and retaliation against her after reporting the incidents. The allegations were part of a barrage similar misconduct claims that forced Cuomo to resign as governor in 2021.
Commisso's lawyers said the settlement 'is a complete vindication of her claims' and that Commisso is "glad to be able to move forward with her life."
The settlement came as Cuomo is in the midst of a so-far bruising political comeback with a run for mayor of New York City. Cuomo lost the Democratic primary last month to Zohran Mamdani by more than 12 percentage points and this week relaunched his campaign to run in the general election as an independent candidate, beginning a potentially uphill battle in a heavily Democratic city where support is coalescing behind Mamdani.
Cuomo, who has denied wrongdoing, has been dogged by the scandal during his campaign for mayor.
'The settlement is not a vindication, it is capitulation to avoid the truth," Cuomo's lawyers said Friday in a statement in which they called Commisso's allegations 'false.'
The attorneys, Rita Glavin and Theresa Trzaskoma, added that they 'oppose the dismissal of Ms. Commisso's lawsuit.'
'Until the truth is revealed, the lawsuit should not be dismissed,' they said in the statement.
Cuomo resigned as governor after a report from the state attorney general determined that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women, with some alleging unwanted kissing and touching, as well as remarks about their appearances and sex lives.
Commisso filed her lawsuit in late 2023, just before the expiration of the Adult Survivors Act, a special law that created a yearlong suspension of the usual time limit to sue over an alleged sexual assault.
She later filed a criminal complaint accusing Cuomo of groping her but a local district attorney declined to prosecute, citing lack of sufficient evidence.

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Washington Post
40 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Gabbard's claims of an anti-Trump conspiracy are not supported by declassified documents
WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this month declassified material that she claimed proved a 'treasonous conspiracy' by the Obama administration in 2016 to politicize U.S. intelligence in service of casting doubt on the legitimacy of Donald Trump's election victory. As evidence, Gabbard cited newly declassified emails from Obama officials and a five-year-old classified House report in hopes of undermining the intelligence community's conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to boost Trump and denigrate his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.


Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Gabbard's claims of an anti-Trump conspiracy are not supported by declassified documents
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Those investigations either concluded — or accepted the conclusion — that Russia embarked on a campaign to interfere in the election through the use of social media and hacked material. The House-led probe, conducted by Trump allies, also concurred that Russia ran an election interference campaign but said the purpose was to sow chaos in the U.S. rather than boost Trump. Several of the reports criticize the actions of Obama administration officials, particularly at the FBI, but do not dispute the fundamental findings that Moscow sought to interfere in the election. The Associated Press has reviewed those reports to evaluate how Gabbard's claims stack up: Russian election interference CLAIM: 'The intelligence community had one assessment: that Russia did not have the intent and capability to try to impact the outcome of the U.S. election leading up to Election Day. The same assessment was made after the election.' — Gabbard to Fox News on Tuesday . 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CLAIM: 'There was a shift, a 180-degree shift, from the intelligence community's assessment leading up to the election to the one that President Obama directed be produced after Donald Trump won the election that completely contradicted those assessments that had come previously.' — Gabbard to Fox News on Tuesday. There was no shift. The emails Gabbard released show that a Department of Homeland Security official in August 2016 told then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper there was 'no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count.' The public assessment the Obama administration made public in January 2017 reached the same conclusion: 'DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.' Putin's intent CLAIM: The Obama administration 'manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false promoting the LIE that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government helped President Trump win the 2016 election.' — Gabbard on Truth Social Wednesday. The material declassified this week reveals some dissent within the intelligence community about whether Putin wanted to help Trump or simply inflame the U.S. public. That same question led to a partisan divide on the House Intelligence panel when it examined the matter several years later. Gabbard's memo released last week cites a 'whistleblower' who she says served in the intelligence community at the time and who is quoted as saying that he could not 'concur in good conscience' with the intelligence community's judgment that Russia had a 'decisive preference' for Trump. Such dissent and debate are not unusual in the drafting of intelligence reports. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee examined whether there was any political interference in the Obama administration's conclusions and reported that 'all analysts expressed that they were free to debate, object to content, and assess confidence levels, as is normal and proper.' In 2018, Putin directly addressed the question of whether he preferred Trump at a press conference in Helsinki even as he sidestepped a question about whether he directed any of his subordinates to help Trump. 'Yes, I did,' Putin said. 'Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.' Steele dossier CLAIM: 'They used already discredited information like the Steele dossier — they knew it was discredited at the time.' — Gabbard to Fox News on Tuesday. The dossier refers to a collection of opposition research files compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, whose work was funded by Democrats during the 2016 election. 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It is true, however, that the FBI and Justice Department relied in part on the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants to eavesdrop on the communications of a former Trump campaign adviser, the inspector general found. FBI agents continued to pursue those warrants even after questions arose about the credibility of Steele's reporting. The dossier was also summarized — over the objections of then-CIA Director John Brennan, he has said — in a two-page annex to the classified version of the intelligence community assessment. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .


CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
Federal appeals court issues another blow to Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship
Source: CNN A federal appeals court on Wednesday issued another major blow to President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, ruling that it's unconstitutional and upholding a nationwide block against the controversial policy. The 2-1 ruling from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is significant because the Supreme Court late last month ordered lower courts to take a second look at a set of nationwide injunctions issued earlier this year that halted Trump's implementation of his Day One order to ensure they weren't broader than necessary. The San Francisco-based appeals court decided that one such injunction issued by a federal judge in Seattle in a case brought by a group of Democratic-led states did not represent a judicial overreach that needed to be reined in. 'The district court below concluded that a universal preliminary injunction is necessary to provide the states with complete relief. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the states complete relief,' appeals court Judge Ronald Gould wrote for the majority. 'The states would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically-limited injunction as they would without an injunction,' Gould, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, added, explaining that a narrower injunction would require the states that challenged the law to overhaul their eligibility verification systems for various social services programs. Wednesday's decision also represents the first time an appeals court has fully concluded that Trump's order is unconstitutional. The Trump administration has the option of asking the full 9th Circuit to review the case, but it could also appeal the matter straight to the Supreme Court. 'The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order's proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,' Gould wrote in the ruling, which was joined by appeals court judge Michael Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee. He went on to say that Trump's order contradicts the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution, an 1898 Supreme Court case known as United States v. Wong Kim Ark and decades of Executive Branch practice. Trump's order is already blocked on a nationwide basis after a federal judge in New Hampshire barred enforcement of it against any babies who would be impacted by the policy in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. Such lawsuits are one of the ways the Supreme Court said plaintiffs can still try to broadly block Trump's order. Appeals court Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, partially dissented from the court's ruling on Wednesday. He said he didn't think the states who challenged Trump's order had the legal right — known as 'standing' — to bring the lawsuit in the first place. As a result, he said, he thought it was 'premature to address the merits of the citizenship question or the scope of the injunction.' US District Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee in Seattle, was the first federal judge to block Trump's order. When he first issued an emergency order preventing enforcement of it in late January, he said it was 'blatantly unconstitutional.' See Full Web Article