Women's March breaks silence on Cuomo allegations after third accuser steps forward

Lee Zeldin on Cuomo’s ‘bullying, harassment’: It’s ‘never been more clear’ he’s got to go

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., discusses the sexual harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Women’s March, a feminist group that supports Black Lives Matter’s call to defund the police and other progressive initiatives, broke its silence regarding sexual harassment allegations against New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo after a third woman came forward this week.

“In the past week, two former employees, Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, have accused Governor Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment on the job. Tonight, a third woman, Anna Ruch, accused him of making unwanted advances at a wedding,” Women’s March executive director Rachel O’Leary Carmona tweeted on Monday. “Conduct like this is despicable from anyone, in any job — but coming from the highest office in New York, it’s disqualifying.”

CUOMO FAILED TO HOLD HIMSELF TO HIGH STANDARD IF ALLEGATIONS TRUE, NY ASSEMBLY’S DEM LEADER SAYS 

“We applaud Attorney General Tish James for vowing to appoint a truly independent counsel to look into claims against the Governor,” O’Leary Carmona added. “If they prove true, we call on him to resign immediately.”

Cuomo has been facing heat from all sides. On Monday, his brother, CNN’s Chris Cuomo, acknowledged the elephant in the room at the top of his primetime show, saying he knows “what is going on” with his older sibling, but could not cover it due to his conflict of interest. CNN has given the sexual harassment accusations against Cuomo more attention over the past week, but initially, the liberal network and the governor’s brother gave the Democrat’s controversies little to no airtime. Previously, the network gave Chris Cuomo free rein to conduct friendly, comical interviews with the governor, who wrote a book about successfully handling the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest allegation comes as Attorney General Letitia James announced that the governor’s office sent a letter permitting her office to perform an independent investigation.

In an interview with The New York Times on Monday, 33-year-old Anna Ruch claimed that Cuomo asked to kiss her at a wedding in 2019. In an interview, she specified that Cuomo put his hand on her bare lower back. Ruch said she pulled away and was “so confused and shocked and embarrassed” by the incident, the Times reported.

NY GOV. ANDREW CUOMO ACCUSED BY THIRD WOMAN OF UNWANTED SEXUAL ADVANCES 

After more accusations surfaced, Democratic politicians within the state have already started calling for Cuomo’s resignation.

Before Ruch’s allegations came to light, Women’s March did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment earlier Monday and still has not returned follow-up emails to their press team.

O’Leary Carmona on Tuesday retweeted a message by Women’s March board member Lucy Flores, who pointed out that unlike allegations brought by the first two accusers, how Cuomo allegedly acted toward Ruch is “not illegal.”

Cuomo’s “behavior in a workplace setting is illegal. In the case of Ms. Ruch who was never an employee, the behavior is still wrong but not illegal,” Flores wrote. “So let’s clear this up, all unwanted and non-consensual touching is wrong, and powerful men get away with it all the time.”

On Saturday, The New York Times broke a bombshell report outlining sexual harassment claims from Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration who alleged that the governor “asked her questions about her sex life, whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men.”

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Her claims came just days after Lindsey Boylan, the former deputy secretary for economic development and a special adviser to Cuomo, published a bombshell essay on the website Medium. She accused the governor of going “out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs,” forcibly kissing her on the lips during a one-on-one briefing, and suggesting that they “play strip poker” during a plane ride.

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