Hours after it launched a devastating investigative report on how disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo manhandled the state’s ethics watchdog into approving his controversial $5 million pandemic e-book deal — the now-defunct panel scrubbed the findings from its site.
The 36-page report — the results of a taxpayer funded investigation led by worldwide regulation agency Hogan Lovells — disappeared from the now formally disbanded Joint Fee on Public Ethics’ web site Friday. It had been briefly posted the evening earlier than following the controversial panel’s final board assembly.
The hyperlink to the JCOPE report was useless Friday however The Publish downloaded it's posting it for public consumption right here.
The much-maligned JCOPE — whom critics derisively known as “J-JOKE” — is being changed by a brand new watchdog company created by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Albany Legislature known as the Fee on Ethics in Lobbying and Authorities.
“The web site transitioned to the brand new Fee web site this morning so the outdated hyperlinks could not work,” JCOPE spokesman Walter McClure stated Friday, though all different stories can nonetheless be discovered on the defunct company web site.
And the new hyperlink he offered says, “We’re sorry, the web page that you're searching for is just not discovered,” the hyperlink for the report now says.”
Different JCOPE stories — similar to its just-released annual overview of the lobbying business — had been nonetheless accessible from its web site.
JCOPE officers claimed the disappearance was the results of a glitch and the hyperlink to the report reappeared on the brand new ethic company’s web site Friday afternoon after inquiries from The Publish.
The impartial probe — lately requested by JCOPE commissioners — stated company officers acted like Cuomo’s lap canines as a substitute of watch canines by approving his e-book deal with out even a primary overview of the phrases.
JCOPE officers allowed Cuomo and his group to dictate the phrases of what info it will disclose and when in regards to the e-book contract when it sought approval from the ethics company.
“One of many clear takeaways from our evaluation of JCOPE’s approval of the July 10 [2020 book] request is that the Govt Chamber overpowered JCOPE, and JCOPE failed to claim itself as a watchdog company towards the Governor,” the findings of the regulation agency Hogan Lovells discovered.
“Quite than JCOPE telling the Govt Chamber what info it wanted to offer with the intention to receive approval, the Govt Chamber instructed JCOPE what info the Governor would offer, which was not a lot.”
The belated post-mortem stated, “The Govt Chamber additionally efficiently coerced JCOPE into expediting the approval and dashing by means of the method with very minimal due diligence.”
A serious mistake, the report stated, is that JCOPE’s commissioners in 2012 had delegated authority to present approval for outdoor exercise requests submitted by statewide elected officers to its prime staffers, who became patsies who had been “overpowered” by Cuomo and his prime aides.
The report really useful that commissioners of the ethics company needs to be required to approve any outdoors exercise similar to a profit-making e-book of statewide workplace holders.
“There’s classes to be realized for the successor fee. Don't enable the manager chamber of the governor to intervene with deliberations and adjudication of the company. The commissioners should retain the independence and the choice prerogative and should guard it zealously,” stated JCOPE Commissioner Gary Lavine.
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