Seriously?
Did I miss something or is Lloyd Constantine breaking news that someone from the Cuomo Administration "removed" and made "disappear" documents from the State Archives? ("More of the same from Cuomo," Aug. 12.)
In truth, no such thing happened. Rather, internal documents that had mistakenly been made available to the public are now marked confidential — a standard practice with law enforcement files.
Why does this matter? As former counselor and chief of staff to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, I oversaw the investigations in question, and it matters because the allegation raises questions about the integrity of our work and our staff.
It also matters because, at some point, even in Albany, partisanship and grudges need to yield to responsible behavior and accuracy.
Here, the difference between the truth and Constantine's claim is the difference between responsible debate and the kind of Albany sensationalism that many hoped was behind us.
Destroying documents is a crime. The allegation in Constantine's commentary shouldn't be made lightly and without actual evidence. Yet none exists.
The vitriol is not surprising given the source. Constantine served as part of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's senior staff and was regarded as one of the more divisive staffers.
Moreover, I am at a loss to understand how the Times Union fails to mention that Constantine's own book on Spitzer, "Journal of the Plague Year," was questioned for its lack of reliability and that Spitzer himself rejected Constantine and his credibility — as did most members of his senior staff.
If that's not enough, when it comes to Constantine's own ethical compass, his recent misleading of a state court while serving as a juror during a criminal trial should give a responsible newspaper pause. Finally, Constantine correctly notes the Cuomo Troopergate report spawned a number of other investigative inquiries and reports. What he omits is that all of those reports ultimately concluded along similar lines and in basic agreement with the original report issued by the Cuomo Administration, and that Spitzer himself accepted the report and apologized.
So all I can ask is — Seriously?
Steven M. Cohen
New York City