The ‘Democratic Party’s Own Donald Trump’ Is Getting Another Chance

A little over a week after Ana Liss publicly accused then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of inappropriate behavior in the workplace in March 2021, she received a call from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The Democratic senator from New York wanted to offer her support.

Liss was struggling with the amount of public attention she was getting; she was the third woman to accuse Cuomo of workplace sexual misconduct. “That was very significant and meaningful to me,” Liss said of the call. “She alluded to her own negative experiences with Cuomo when they worked together at HUD [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] many years ago.”

By August 2021, 12 women had come forward with their own stories about Cuomo. An investigation by the New York state attorney general concluded that Cuomo did sexually harass multiple female employees and create a “hostile work environment for women.” Gillibrand, a leading women’s advocate, called on Cuomo to resign four months before the AG’s investigation substantiated the harassment claims. She was a key voice that helped force a reluctant Cuomo to step down.

Three years after Cuomo resigned as governor of New York, he’s now the front-runner in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. And Gillibrand has changed her tune: “This is a country that believes in second chances. So it’s up to New York voters to decide if he should get a second chance to serve,” she recently told NY1. (Gillibrand’s office did not respond to follow-up questions about her call to Liss.)

Liss never expected things to reverse course so dramatically. “I took for granted that she would continue to be on the side of women who struggled in a toxic workplace environment cultivated by Andrew Cuomo,” Liss told HuffPost. “I feel ashamed because I felt that I was doing something important. I put a lot on the line.”

HuffPost spoke with Liss and two other women who publicly accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, as well as attorneys who represent four other accusers. The three women who spoke with HuffPost said they’re deeply disappointed by Cuomo’s return to politics and feel betrayed by the Democrats who once publicly supported them.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) called on then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) to resign four months before the state attorney general's investigation substantiated the harassment claims.

Kayla Bartkowski via Getty Images

Many of Cuomo’s accusers told HuffPost they’re heartbroken that voters have seemingly forgotten their stories or simply don’t care anymore. Most are still dealing with the fallout from publicly sharing their experiences, and some are still wrapped up in expensive and emotionally draining litigation.

“It’s disturbing beyond belief. It’s incredibly bleak to me that he’s back at all,” Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment, told HuffPost. “He has no shame. But, of course, we live in a time and place that so few bad men in power have shame. Shamelessness seems to be their unique superpower.”

Some of the women likened Cuomo’s well-known bullying and taste for revenge to that of the current president. Karen Hinton, who accused Cuomo in 2021 of making unwanted sexual advances toward her in 2000, described the former governor as “the Democratic Party’s own Donald Trump.”

“I think Cuomo, in another timeline, is probably super jealous of Trump,” Liss said. “They use the same playbook.”

Although Cuomo denies all of the allegations against him, he initially apologized that some of his comments to one female employee were “misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.”

Rita Glavin, Cuomo’s attorney, responded to HuffPost’s request for comment in a lengthy email statement. “This is America, and anyone sued is entitled to due process and the right to defend themselves, particularly against demonstrably false allegations,” she wrote.

“The Attorney General bears direct responsibility for this entire mess. She spent $8 million on a shoddy investigation and inaccurate report to pave the way for her own political campaign for Governor,” Glavin continued. “The Assembly followed suit and spent $6 million on its own equally flawed tag-along report. These $14 million now-discredited political reports spawned civil lawsuits because plaintiffs hoped to use the reports to force quick seven-figure settlements.”

Cuomo was the one who initially requested that state Attorney General Letitia James’ office investigate sexual harassment allegations against him. When the investigation substantiated 11 of those claims, Cuomo called it a “sham report” and asked the state Supreme Court to investigate James, claiming she manipulated the investigation to pursue a run for governor. (A spokesperson for the attorney general told HuffPost: “The former Governor bears responsibility for his own actions, full stop. We stand behind this investigation and its findings.”)

A Vengeful Mayor?

Cuomo is currently leading the other eight Democratic candidates with 37% of Democratic primary voters likely voting for him, according to recent polling. New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani is in second with 18%, and the remaining candidates are in the single digits. Cuomo’s commanding lead is likely due, at least in part, to name recognition.

But the women who spoke with HuffPost are still fearful of what’s to come if Cuomo triumphs. The former governor is widely known for his cutthroat tactics, including late-night angry phone calls to anyone who goes against him.

Cuomo’s top aide said his team operates on two speeds: “Get along, and kill,” the Connecticut Post first reported in 2011 and Politico corroborated again in 2021. Many of the women say they are intimately familiar with Cuomo’s ability to weaponize the legal system against his detractors — and they’re worried about what Cuomo might do to them if he becomes mayor.

Mariann Wang has seen how time-consuming and costly these subpoenas can be for her clients. Wang represents Brittany Commisso, Virginia Limmiatis and Alyssa McGrath, all of whom have said Cuomo sexually harassed them when they worked in the governor’s mansion. “Our clients still feel the harm from Cuomo’s abuse of power and harassment, even as he attempts a comeback by minimizing his wrongdoing and punishing the women who came forward, using taxpayer money,” Wang told HuffPost.

Liss told HuffPost her legal bills were upwards of $30,000 and have nearly crippled her family; another woman said she’s spent close to $2 million in two lawsuits, neither of which she’s a party to. (The second woman asked to remain anonymous so she could speak candidly about her personal finances.) Cuomo isn’t on the hook for any of his bills; instead, New York taxpayers have footed the nearly $60 million in legal fees that have gone toward his defense.

“I had never been in a legal case as a witness or anything before … I never would have known how these things work,” Boylan said. “But bills accumulate very quickly, particularly if you’re up against a defendant whose bills are being covered by someone else.”

Glavin told HuffPost that it was entirely appropriate for the state to cover Cuomo’s legal costs. “State law dictates that legal fees to defend a lawsuit brought in the context of an official’s state employment are covered by the state. A judge ruled that the law applies to these cases and requires the state to pay defense costs.”

Glavin added that the $60 million figure released by the Office of New York State Comptroller is “misleading to the point of being willfully deceitful.” She said some of the costs have nothing to do with Cuomo’s defense, including the $14 million the New York attorney general’s office and the state assembly spent on investigations into sexual harassment claims against the former governor.

A few lawsuits have been filed against Cuomo over the sexual harassment claims. One is a civil suit filed by a state trooper who worked on Cuomo’s security detail and said Cuomo sexually harassed and groped her. The state trooper, whose identity has not been revealed in court documents, is suing Cuomo and the state of New York in the ongoing case.

All three women HuffPost spoke with, and the three represented by Wang, have been subpoenaed by Cuomo in this case. This means that the women may need to be deposed, which can amount to a lot of billable attorney hours. Cuomo’s spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said Cuomo’s legal team subpoenaed the women because the state trooper cited the AG investigation, which names all of the women, in her original complaint. Two of the women who spoke to HuffPost, including Liss, were already deposed for the AG’s investigation, and they argue that testimony could have been used again in the state trooper case.

“I've many times believed that I’d be better off dead than endure more of his litigation abuse,” Charlotte Bennett said when she withdrew her sexual harassment lawsuit against Cuomo in December.

via Associated Press

“A real tragedy in this case is how New York state has abandoned the victims,” Valdi Licul, the state trooper’s attorney, told HuffPost.

“There’s been finding after finding that these women were sexually harassed,” he said. “Rather than make the victims whole, the state has spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to defend against their claims. It’s morally indefensible.”

Brittany Commisso sued Cuomo and a few of his top advisers for sexual harassment in 2023 under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act. Commisso accused Cuomo of groping her in 2020 when she worked as an executive assistant. She filed a criminal complaint against Cuomo in 2021, but prosecutors dismissed the charges. She’s currently suing Cuomo and New York state under the state’s anti-discrimination law.

Another case centers on former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett, who said Cuomo sexually harassed her when she worked for him in 2020. Bennett filed the lawsuit in 2023 against New York state, claiming the state, as her employer, was liable for Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment. The suit was settled in April. Cuomo now says he is planning to sue Bennett for defamation.

Bennett withdrew a separate federal lawsuit against Cuomo in December, citing invasive discovery requests meant to “embarrass and humiliate her,” according to Bennett’s attorney. Cuomo’s legal team used subpoenas to request medical documents ranging from gynecological records to eye exams, including some that dated back to when she was a minor.

“Throughout this extraordinarily painful two year case, I’ve many times believed that I’d be better off dead than endure more of his litigation abuse,” Bennett said at the time she dropped the lawsuit.

Hinton, who accused Cuomo in 2021 of making unwanted sexual advances, worked for him for years, as did her husband, Howard Glaser. In Cuomo’s 2014 memoir, he described Hinton as part of “my extended team, my second family.”

“Most people who know Andrew know that this is how he behaves when you disagree with him. When you don’t show him loyalty, when you don’t lie for him — this is the way he treats people,” Hinton said, referring to the way she says Cuomo has used the legal system against many of the women who came forward.

The litigation has also had a chilling effect: The women are scared to speak with one another for fear of more legal repercussions from Cuomo’s team.

Hinton is 66 years old and no longer worried about Cuomo going after her now that she lives out of state. “One of the reasons we left New York was to get away from him,” she told HuffPost. But she’s worried for the other women — many of whom are young and still live in the area.

If Cuomo wins the Democratic primary and goes on to become the mayor of New York City, Hinton worries that legal attacks won’t stop. He’ll simply continue with more power and resources.

“This is what I fear, that if he becomes governor again or he becomes mayor, he will take some time to go after them,” she said. “And he’s already doing it in so many ways.”

A Stunning Comeback

Three years ago, it would have baffled many to know that Cuomo would soon be back on a political ticket. In addition to the dozen or so sexual misconduct allegations, Cuomo was the subject of a congressional investigation into allegations that his administration had deliberately obscured the full scope of nursing home deaths in New York when he was governor during the COVID-19 pandemic. An investigation from the Office of the New York State Attorney General found that Cuomo undercounted the death toll of nursing home patients during the pandemic. This week, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress during the congressional investigation.

If Cuomo hadn’t resigned in 2021, he likely would’ve faced an impeachment investigation.

Since then, investigations into the sexual misconduct allegations conducted by the New York State Assembly and the Department of Justice have corroborated the majority of findings in the initial New York attorney general probe. The DOJ found that Cuomo “subjected female employees to a sexually hostile work environment” and “retaliated against employees who spoke out about the harassment.” (Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, referred to the DOJ report as a “glorified press release” and claimed that the department did not reach out to the former governor during the investigation.)

Cuomo has tried to discredit these findings in several ways, including by noting he was never prosecuted for any crime. But sexual harassment is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. The state-level investigation found that he broke multiple state and federal civil laws.

It’s difficult to unsee all of the evidence against Cuomo, and yet so many powerful Democrats have seemingly decided to look the other way. Some may not care about Cuomo’s recent past, while others reportedly know his notoriously vengeful side and don’t want to make an enemy of him if he becomes mayor.

Andrew Cuomo is currently leading by nearly 20 points in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary election, which takes place on June 24.

Kent Nishimura via Getty Images

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who replaced Cuomo when he resigned, said when Cuomo joined the mayoral race: “I will work with whomever the really smart voters of New York City decide they want to be their mayor. That is not up for me to decide.”

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D), who called for Cuomo’s resignation in 2021, said earlier this year that he would not endorse a candidate until after the June 24 primary. Former President Joe Biden, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and other prominent Democrats who were once vocal about Cuomo stepping down have been silent on his return to New York politics.

Hochul, Jeffries and Schumer did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

“Honestly, it’s embarrassing for them,” Erica Vladimer, a victims’ advocate, told HuffPost. Vladimer is a former New York state Senate staffer who co-founded the Sexual Harassment Working Group after she accused then-state Sen. Jeff Klein (D) of forcibly kissing her in 2018. A state ethics commission opened an investigation in 2019, but the probe has been continually delayed. Klein lost his reelection the following fall.

“It just proves that they never really stood with survivors, that they were trying to put themselves in the spotlight at a moment when standing with survivors was in vogue,” she added. “Now, we really know what their positions are.”

Gillibrand has faced the most criticism from the media, given her years of advocacy fighting for sexual assault survivors. When HuffPost approached her on Capitol Hill, the senator responded: “I don’t want to expand on it now, but I do think it’s up to the voters, and we can have a longer conversation later.”

Hinton was unhappy with Gillibrand’s remark that “this is a country that believes in second chances.”

“Everyone should be given a second chance once they have been held accountable, but he has not been held accountable,” she said. “He’s called all of them liars. How, in anyone’s mind, can you believe that 12 women decided to go public with their stories, but all of them lied?”

Asked why she’s being “so soft” on Cuomo, Gillibrand said that Cuomo accepted his punishment when he resigned. “I did my part in standing with survivors and saying this behavior is unacceptable and that a resignation was needed at the time,” she said, adding that many of these questions would be best directed toward Cuomo himself.

“Again, asking all women to be the judge, jury and advocate of every bad behavior of man is in and of itself harmful,” she told Lehrer. “I would ask [that] you ask these questions of Governor Cuomo … You shouldn’t be asking the women.”

The Forgotten Fallout Of Speaking Up

When a woman accuses a powerful man of sexual misconduct, the media goes into a sort of frenzy. The woman’s name is all over national news headlines, talking heads dissect her story, and people on social media — supporters and trolls alike — weigh her credibility. Liss, who got that call from Gillibrand, was not ready for the onslaught of public attention she received when she spoke out.

Liss fielded questions from friends, co-workers and relatives. People she hadn’t spoken to in years reached out to her. It was an incredibly stressful time for her and her family, she said. She mourns the transformation of her digital footprint, which is now all about her experience with Cuomo.

“I didn’t realize that this is maybe going to be in my obituary some day, and that kind of sucks,” she told HuffPost.

Over time, colleagues started treating her differently. “I could feel, among certain people, folks were taking a different tone,” Liss said of her work in politics. “There was a sense of, ‘Well, Ana, you made your bed, and now you have to sleep in it,’” she said. “Like, ‘You know that this man is cruel and will stop at nothing to get back at people. He’s known to be vengeful, so why are you surprised that he’s coming after you?’”

Liss, who has two young children, says she finally paid off her legal bills after being dragged into the state trooper case by Cuomo’s legal team. She’s terrified to speak with any of the other women because she fears Cuomo will subpoena her again, and she simply doesn’t have the money for more legal expenses.

After everything she’s been through, it’s a gut punch to think that New Yorkers have either forgotten or simply don’t care about her story. “We’re willing to look the other way because there’s a bigger boogey monster, there’s larger evils in the world,” Liss said, referring to the Trump administration. “So we’re willing to take, I guess, the lesser of two evils ... I’m scared. I’m sad.”

“But looking back — I’ve thought a lot about this — would I have done it again?” she mused. “I think I would have done it again because it was the right thing to do.”

New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary election is on June 24. Early voting begins June 14. The general election for New York City mayor will be held on Nov. 4, 2025.

Igor Bobic contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated how many current lawsuits are ongoing against Cuomo.