“Beholden to Trump”: Under DOJ investigation, Cuomo could be pressured to serve the MAGA agenda

While former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pitching himself as the New York mayoral candidate who can stand up to President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice investigation recently opened against him, putting him in a position similar to Mayor Eric Adams and threatening his ability to govern if elected. At the same time, his political rivals say that the new investigation into Cuomo could lead to him, if elected, being manipulated into serving Trump's agenda.

Last week it was revealed that the Justice Department had launched an investigation into Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress during its 2024 investigation into nursing home COVID deaths. The New York Times reported that the federal attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., opened the investigation about a month ago under the leadership of then-Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, who has since left that position to head DOJ’s “weaponization” group.

Republicans accuse Cuomo of lying to Congress during testimony given last June concerning his alleged role in drafting a state report on nursing home deaths in 2020. In a referral to the Justice Department from last year, congressional Republicans claimed that “Mr. Cuomo made multiple criminally false statements, including that he was neither involved in the drafting nor the review” of said report.

The news of the investigation comes as Cuomo maintains a lead in New York City’s mayoral primary and shortly after Adams cut a deal with the Trump administration to have the criminal corruption charges he was facing dropped, in what was widely criticized as a deal that would give Trump policy concessions from the mayor. During the same period Trump and Adams were apparently negotiating a deal, Adams agreed to let ICE search Rikers Island for immigrants, and to deliver immigration enforcement in line with Trump's policies. Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, said on Fox News in an appearance with Adams at the time that, “If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on a couch."

“I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Homan said.

Manhattan federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon resigned over Adams’ deal, calling it “a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment.”

With the recent revelations concerning the investigation into Cuomo, critics are drawing parallels between Trump’s leveraging a criminal indictment against Adams and the situation that Cuomo finds himself in. They're concerned that the Trump administration could leverage the investigation and any potential charges stemming from it to get Cuomo to comply with administration priorities.

Brad Lander, New York City comptroller and a candidate for mayor, told Salon that “New Yorkers cannot afford another corrupt mayor beholden to Trump — Cuomo should announce immediately that he will not seek or accept a pardon from the President.”

“Andrew Cuomo, believing he may need a pardon for committing perjury, explains his incessant kissing up to Donald Trump,” Lander said.

While the investigation from the Trump administration may appear politically motivated, Republicans are not the only ones who allege that Cuomo worked to cover up nursing home deaths during COVID. In 2021, The New York Times revealed that that Cuomo's most senior aides rewrote portions of a state report, obscuring the total number of pandemic-related deaths and leading to an undercount.

Erica Vladimer, a victims' advocate and founding director of Harassment Free New York, told Salon that allegedly making false statements to Congress is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the Trump administration could use against Cuomo.

“One of the things I tend to say is that sexual harassment is the canary in the corruption coal mine. And when you have someone who is willing to harass, bully and retaliate young government staffers, you know that they're also willing to abuse their power in a multitude of ways, which we've seen with Cuomo before, when he was governor,” Vladimir said. “That is a toxic leader that is not a real leader, and not someone who is going to stand up to Trump in the way that New Yorkers are looking for in their next mayor.”

Richard Swanson, president-elect of the New York County Lawyers Association, drew out some of the ways in which Cuomo’s situation is different from the one Adams found himself in. First, Adams was facing indictment where Cuomo, at least for now, is only facing an investigation. Secondly, the charges Adams faced rested on a material exchange, whereas lying to Congress, which Cuomo is alleged to have done, is less straightforward to prove. 

“In the case of the Cuomo investigation,  the government's going to have to show intent, and in the Adams case, it was a more straightforward case of alleged graft,” Swanson said.

Swanson added that the current investigation, launched by Martin, appears more directed at embarrassing Cuomo and potentially impacting the Democratic primary, given its timing. He did say, though, that “there’s more than enough time before the election” for the government to complete its investigation. 

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, told Salon the former governor is a victim of political persecution.

“Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political.”

"We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now? The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple—something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against," Azzopardi said.