Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
From being the Sheriff of Wall Street, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has become the bête noire of Albany, or at least that’s how the media is portraying him.
In its June 8 issue, the New York Post, quoting unnamed sources close to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, says Albany is “increasingly paranoid” over the corruption probes Bharara has launched into the state government’s top elected and non-elected officials. In fact, his probes are “paralyzing” the Cuomo administration, according to the Post.
When Bharara turns his piercing blue eyes on anyone, they appear to end up detecting some wrongdoing. He successfully prosecuted 85 of his 85 insider trading probes until one of them was reversed. Now his eyes are seemingly on Albany where he has already indicted not just the former powerhouse, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, but his investigations are creeping closer to Gov. Cuomo, news reports surmise. On May 31, the Post contended that one of Gov. Cuomo’s big time contributors was under Bharara’s gun.
“Paralysis and “paranoia’’ brought on by US Attorney Preet Bharara’s ongoing corruption probe have come to define Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration with just seven days to go in the legislative session,” the Post said quoting “a worried Cuomo ally and others.”
“Cuomo is paranoid, his staff is paranoid and nobody can make a decision on key issues, like the [about-to-expire housing construction subsidy] 421-a program and other big outstanding issues,” this Cuomo “supporter,” the unnamed friend of Cuomo is quoted saying, adding that hardly anything was getting done in Albany and Cuomo had gone into seclusion and that the Silver and Skelos indictments “badly shook” the governor.
To be fair, issues like the 421-a tax credit to big builders in the city, may be complicated by factors other than Bharara. Also, it is a selective criticism. Immigrant advocates for instance, give high marks to Cuomo for creating a state Office of New Americans, requiring state agencies to offer free interpretation and translation services for vital forms, making it a felony to commit immigrant assistance fraud, and doing away with the program that shared the fingerprints of anyone arrested with federal immigration officials. He’s also moved against sexual assault on college and university campuses launching the Enough is Enough campaign to combat it on June 9, announcing a new affordable housing agenda June 6 allocating $11 million for it.
These most recent steps may prove the governor is not in hiding while Bharara probes.
Besides, Bharara announced his intentions to probe the Governor’s doings as far as a year ago May, when he demanded the state Senate and Assembly preserve all documents relating to the Moreland Commission that Gov. Cuomo shut down abruptly in March 2014, the New York Daily News reported. The governor had established the commission to examine state government corruption in 2013, and all indications were that Bharara believed there had been political interference and deal-making quid-pro-quos involved in closing it down. Knowing Bharara’s style, that probe is ongoing in the background as other probes currently hog the headlines.
In his various speeches at commencements and other events over the last few months, Bharara has displayed a messianic zeal to go after corruption particularly in high places. Since 2013, he has added on another title as the “New Sheriff of Albany.”
Considering his record going after insider traders, big banks, auto companies, reckless mortgage lenders, pharmaceutical companies, even Russian diplomats’ alleged defrauding of Medicaid, Albany has much to fear from the Prosecutor General, yet another title that sticks to Bharara. Whether it paralyzes the governor is open to question.
The post Is Preet Bharara The Cause Of Albany’s Paralysis? appeared first on News India Times.