Andrew Cuomo: Daughter asks Twitter followers to ‘please read’ claims that sex allegations were ‘manufactured’

Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo tweeted an article claiming allegations against her dad were a “manufactured”

The youngest daughter of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has begged followers on social media to read an article that declares the sexual misconduct allegations against her father to be “a manufactured #MeToo-style PR offensive”.

Michaela Kennedy Cuomo, 24, tweeted a piece by Substack writer Michael Tracey that claimed the Democratic governor – who was replaced this year by Kathy Hochul – had been the target of an internal smear campaign by his own party.

Mr Tracey, a New Jersey native who has more than 214,000 Twitter followers and is known for provoking both the left and the right, wrote that “the increasingly assertive ‘progressive’ wing of the New York Democratic Party – long festering with resentment against Cuomo, who by early 2021 had been in power for over a decade – needed some other vehicle by which to remove him.

“And they settled on the most reliable tool they have in their arsenal to settle internal Democratic Party disputes: a manufactured #MeToo-style PR offensive.”

The former governor’s daughter tweeted the article, saying: “Finally. Please Read.”

Mr Cuomo’s late father, Mario, was also the Governor of New York during the 80s and 90s. That political legacy suffered a major hit in August, however, when the younger Cuomo, 63, resigned after “a barrage of sexual harassment allegations in a fall from grace a year after he was widely hailed nationally for his detailed daily briefings and leadership during some of the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic,” AP reported.

The former governor has adamantly denied intentionally mistreating women and – like the article shared by his daughter – insisted the allegations were politically motivated.

When he resigned in August, he said he took “full responsibility” for his actions but then proceeded to list a litany of excuses.

“I have been too familiar with people,” he said. “My sense of humor can be insensitive and off-putting. I do hug and kiss people casually, women and men. I have done it all my life. It is who I’ve been since I can remember. In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone. But, I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.

“There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate.”

Mr Cuomo is facing a criminal complaint for allegedly groping an aide at the governor’s mansion, but that complaint is “potentially defective” after the sheriff’s office prematurely filed the charge without including a sworn statement from a victim to move forward with prosecution, according to a district attorney.

In a letter to a judge in Albany County, district attorney David Soares criticised Sheriff Craig Apple for “unilaterally and inexplicably” filing the complaint without first speaking with his office, which was investigating the case for “several months”.

“Unfortunately, the filings in this matter are potentially defective in that the police-officer-complainant failed to include a sworn statement by the victim such that [the office] could proceed with a prosecution on these papers,” Mr Soares said in the letter, dated 4 November. He added that the alleged mistakes could be “exculpatory.”

Judge Holly Trexler moved his appearance to 7 January, 2022, after the district attorney’s office requested a delay “to reduce the risk of a procedural dismissal of this case” and to give the district attorney more time to review it.