Even as he applauded the five-year prison sentence handed down Thursday to former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, US Attorney Preet Bharara sent a blunt message to two other major officials.
“These cases show — and history teaches — that the most effective corruption investigations are those that are truly independent and not in danger of either interference or premature shutdown,” he said.
That was a direct shot at Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his ill-fated Moreland Commission — which fell victim to just such interference and premature shutdown.
Cuomo established the commission in 2013, saying it would “root out corruption in politics and government.” But when it started doing its job too well — despite frequent intervention from the governor and his aides — Cuomo abruptly pulled the plug.
Bharara investigated that shutdown, but found “insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime.” His ongoing probe into the Buffalo Billion program, though, has reached deep into the executive chamber.
Yet the prosecutor’s words have another target: Mayor Bill de Blasio — who’s been painting the criminal investigations of his administration as a Cuomo-orchestrated political hit.
Bharara’s remarks stand as public notice to the mayor that the US Attorney’s Office is deeply involved in at least two of those probes — no Cuomo, no politics, just prosecutors and federal agents doing their jobs.
When he first ran for governor in 2010, Cuomo declared war on political corruption, saying that “Albany’s antics today could make Boss Tweed blush” and vowing “enough is enough.”
Six years later, two of the “three men in a room” are headed to prison, the latest in a long parade of convicted lawmakers. Yet state government rolls on, same as always.
De Blasio, meanwhile, won office railing against the outsize influence of the rich and powerful in a “Tale of Two New Yorks” — but is now mired in charges that he sold favors to big donors to fuel his ambitions.
“Enough is enough”? Only Preet Bharara, it appears, really means it.