Andrew Cuomo, the secretary of housing and urban development, has been a busy man recently. In just the past six weeks, he's threatened to sue the gun industry, thundered against Fannie Mae for refusing to knuckle under to his demands for privileged information, and seized $ 60 million in New York City housing funds that would otherwise have been doled out by Mayor Rudy Giuliani (i.e., Hillary Clinton's opponent).
Congressional Republicans are crying foul over Cuomo's insertion of HUD into the New York Senate race, but it doesn't look like he'll be around to answer their questions. THE SCRAPBOOK has learned that Cuomo will be leaving HUD no later than May, having told his closest associates he plans to return to his native New York. He's been less explicit about his exact plans, but they're not hard to figure out: get Al Gore elected president (Cuomo was spinning reporters at the January 5 debate in Durham, New Hampshire), get Hillary Clinton elected senator, and get himself elected governor in 2002.
It's too bad Cuomo won't be interrogated on the Hill, particularly when it comes to explaining why he seized the $ 60 million. The facts of the case are as follows: On December 21, Cuomo announced at a New York State Assembly hearing that HUD would take control of the homeless program, charging the Giuliani administration with having "politicized" the way the program's grants were being awarded. Moments after the hearing ended, Cuomo assured reporters there was nothing political in his action, but that, yes, "Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to be the next senator from New York." Later in the day, Cuomo's wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, spoke at a Democratic party fund-raiser in New York and cheered her husband's move against Giuliani. As if that's not enough, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager was, until recently, a regional HUD director in New York, reporting to Cuomo. And even Cuomo's own general counsel at HUD can't offer a forthright defense of the action, saying only that it "may be legally defensible." Even the New York Times has tagged Cuomo's move "an abrupt and extreme step," adding that Giuliani was "within his rights to see politics behind Mr. Cuomo's action."
Once Cuomo moves off the government payroll, will the Clinton and Gore campaigns give him his back pay?