Credit where credit is due: Jeanine Pirro and her staff are proving to be quite clever in the creation of nasty attacks on Andrew Cuomo.
The latest press release from the Pirro camp combines a couple of paragraphs about Cuomo going to work for Andrew Farkas after settling a lawsuit against him while running HUD, and a couple of paragraphs about Cuomo's website still touting the endorsement he got a while back from Brian McLaughlin, the labor leader/assemblyman now infamously accused of skimming money from all sorts of places.
What, you ask, is the linkage between the two? "Andrew Cuomo continually forms partnerships with people who steal our money," says the release.
Full release is after the jump.
Pirro: Cuomo Must Disavow Partners Who Steal Our Money
Assails Cuomo's Partnerships with Farkas and McLaughlin
WHITE PLAINS, NY -- (10/19/2006; 1350)(EIS) -- Attorney General candidate Jeanine Pirro today called upon her opponent, Andrew Cuomo, to disavow his partnerships with Andrew Farkas, who diverted $7.6 million of HUD funds in a kickback scheme while Cuomo was HUD Secretary, and disgraced Democratic Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, the subject of a 44-count federal racketeering indictment announced Tuesday charging him with stealing $2.2 million from union members, taxpayers and Little Leaguers.
After approving a "sweetheart" settlement of a HUD lawsuit whereby Farkas was fined $7.4 million but permitted to retain his HUD contracts and participate in future HUD programs, Cuomo went into a business partnership with Farkas, earning $1.2 million from that relationship as well as $800,000 in political contributions.
Pirro has pointed to the Cuomo-Farkas partnership, which began less than three years after Cuomo left HUD, as demonstrating the hypocrisy of Cuomo's Reform Albany agenda. Cuomo now proposes outlawing government officials from accepting jobs with businesses with whom they conducted official business for three years after leaving office.
"If it should be illegal for everyone else now, why was it ethical when you did it then?" Pirro has asked.
McLaughlin endorsed Cuomo on May 16, 2005, an endorsement still displayed on Cuomo's campaign website two days after McLaughlin's federal indictment was made public. At that time, McLaughlin described his relationship with Cuomo as "partners fighting for social justice."
"Andrew Cuomo continually forms partnerships with people who steal our money," Pirro said. "He said in Tuesday's debate he wanted to lead by example -- well, this is some example. You have to reform your own conduct before you can reform Albany."