Should Democrat Joe Biden be elected president in November, his choice for Attorney general would be NY State Governor Andrew Cuomo, according to Axios, citing two sources at the National Governors Association, which Cuomo chairs (Buzz grows around Cuomo as Biden’s attorney general pick).
According to the report, there are two reasons Biden would pick Cuomo for the job: to investigate Trump-era officials and President Trump himself for alleged crimes committed in office; and to implement a new federal policy regarding police, social unrest, systemic racism, and limiting state restrictions on abortion.
Regarding abortions, Cuomo’s Attorney General Letitia James on Sunday announced she is leading a coalition of 22 attorneys general from around the nation in filing a petition asking the US Supreme Court to review a circuit court decision upholding the Trump Administration’s Title X family planning rule, also known as the “gag rule.” The rule dismantles the nation’s family planning program by reducing access to critical reproductive health care services, including birth control and referrals for abortions.
As to other actions against Trump – in March New York joined the States of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Virginia in bringing action before the United States District Court for the Northern District Of California, Oakland Division, to protect their residents, National Guard units, natural resources, and sovereign and economic interests “from the harm caused by President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”
The lawsuit claims that “for the second consecutive year, the Trump Administration has acted contrary to the will of Congress by redirecting billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for Department of Defense projects toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border. This includes the diversion of funds for military projects in the Plaintiff States and vital equipment for the States’ respective National Guards.”
“Defendants must be enjoined from carrying out President Trump’s unconstitutional and unlawful scheme,” the plaintiffs say.
In August, the New York State Attorney General asked the Supreme Court of NY to compel the president’s son, Eric Trump, to be deposed in an investigation of the Trump Organization. In court filings AG Letitia James said Eric Trump initially agreed to sit for a deposition on July 22, “balking less than two days before he was scheduled by agreement to give testimony.”
AG James is currently investigating the Trump Organization for improperly inflating “the value of Mr. Trump’s assets on financial statements in order to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.”
AG James has been investigating President Trump and the Trump Organization since 2019, following the testimony of Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen before Congress in which Cohen said Trump’s organization inflated the values of his assets to fraudulently secure favorable loans and insurance coverage – and then turned around and deflated the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes.
According to Axios, Biden is also considering former acting AG Sally Yates for the job – Yates sounded the alarm with the Trump White House regarding the Russian loyalties of then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (Flynn was let go after 22 days on the job). Also on Biden’s short list for AG is Stacey Abrams who lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.
Biden will find in Cuomo a Bobby Kennedy to his JFK. He has known Cuomo since the 1980s through his late father, NY Governor Mario Cuomo. Biden and Andrew Cuomo grew close to one another during the restoration efforts following the 2012 Hurricane Sandy which killed 233 people and inflicted $70 billion in damages across eight countries from the Caribbean to Canada. Biden also knew Cuomo when the latter was serving as President Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Axios cited a source who said about Biden and Cuomo: “When one of them needs something, it’s automatic, it’s not a calculation.”