Karen Hinton, the former aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo when he was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development, has offered more details about his conduct when she worked for him.
Writing for the New York Daily News today, Hinton revealed that Cuomo sexually harassed not only her but also other women at HUD who had the misfortune to wind up under his command. He even caused one aide to break up with her boyfriend.
He was a bully, she wrote, who mastered the art of “penis politics.”
Though almost a dozen women have accused Cuomo of repulsive harassment, he has yet to resign, and the New York legislature has yet to impeach him.
Democrats did nothing about allegations that President Joe Biden assaulted former aide Tara Reade, or his relentless and fetishistic sniffing and touching of women.
Now, it appears, they’ll do nothing about Cuomo, who is accused not just of harassment, but of assault.
Master of the Dark Art
Hinton told her story to the Washington Post in March, but now she’s divulging not just what happened to her.
“Cuomo refused to hire a highly qualified woman for a HUD position because she was ‘not attractive enough’ for him, he told me,” she wrote. “He hired a white guy. This wasn’t sexual. It was gender discrimination, not a trivial offense.”
But Cuomo got away with it. Leftists often do.
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“A woman employee told me she metaphorically drew down a curtain in front of her face as her day began at HUD and pulled it back up as she left in the evening, after hours of bullying, unreasonable demands and public humiliation by Cuomo,” Hinton wrote. “This wasn’t kissing. It was sexual harassment and discrimination.”
Then came the flirting with a young woman:
I also saw him flirt with and tease a young, attractive staffer at HUD who began to think Cuomo cared for her. As a result, she and her boyfriend, who had worked for Cuomo, broke up. Cuomo’s flirt had been a payback move because the boyfriend had left his job without Cuomo’s permission. A few years later, the woman staffer reappeared in New York looking for a job, and Cuomo did nothing to help her. This was more about power and control than a sexual overture.
Known for his explosive, maniacal rages, Cuomo picked on a woman who “didn’t meet his standard of performance” but had political connections that made the pink slip problematic if not impossible. Instead of manning up and dismissing her, “he harassed and bullied her in ways to force her resignation. He snatched her up for meetings while she worked out in the HUD gym. She was told to return immediately with her workout clothes on, sweating.”
I call this “penis politics,” a form of political art that’s not just about sexual abuse but is always about gender discrimination. Cuomo is a master of the dark art. That’s why I won’t reveal the names of these women publicly. It’s their stories to tell. Whether anyone will believe us is another story about evidence….
Cuomo churned his own doubt after he initially apologized for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable” but then reversed course, calling his accusers liars. He dug himself another hole last week when he told a female reporter, “If I just made you feel uncomfortable, that is not harassment. That’s you feeling uncomfortable.” So are his 10 accusers liars, uncomfortable women or uncomfortable liars?
Other Accusers
As for Hinton’s experience, she told the Post that Cuomo called her to his hotel room when they were on a trip to Los Angeles. The two discussed personal matters, including marriage, and when Hinton became self-conscious, she decided to leave the room.
“I stand up and say, ‘It’s getting late, I need to go,’ ” she remembered:
Cuomo stood up, walked over and embraced her, she recalled.
She described it as “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.” “It’s not just a hug,” she added. Hinton said she pulled away.
“He pulls me back for another intimate embrace,” she said. “I thought at that moment it could lead to a kiss, it could lead to other things, so I just pull away again, and I leave.”
Allegations about Cuomo from Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan are harrowing. Cuomo asked Bennett whether she enjoyed older men, and forcibly kissed Boylan. Cuomo is nearly 40 years older than Bennett, who played soccer against Cuomo’s daughter.
Women weren’t the only targets of Cuomo’s bullying and harassment. He called men “p*ssies” and told them “you have no b*lls,” an accuser alleges.
Cuomo even kissed a woman in a “highly sexual manner” during a visit to her home, she alleges. He was there to assess flooding damage in her town from Lake Ontario.
