https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/cuomo-michael-tracey
Among
the “less overtly sexual” behavior cited in the report as being
unlawfully “gender-based” was Cuomo’s apparent habit of “allowing senior
staff members to sit on his lap at official functions” and “lying down
with his head on the lap of staff members who are women.” This, the
report alleges on page 148, was a key component of the overall “hostile
work environment.”
But
parsed out elsewhere in the report—evidently causing it to be missed by
frenetic pundits—is the revelation that “none” of the staff involved in
the lap-sitting activity “reported feeling uncomfortable with this
behavior.”
In
fact, the report’s authors concede, “a number of witnesses we spoke to
informed us that all of this behavior led to a sense among staff members
in the Executive Chamber that personal attention from the Governor,
even if flirtatious … was not only normal, but to be valued.” This would
seem to be exculpatory information of a kind—but a search across Google
and Twitter suggests it’s been omitted almost entirely from the ensuing
press coverage. Instead, these exculpatory testaments were somehow
reconfigured by the report’s authors as evidence of Cuomo’s guilt. In
the rush to axe Cuomo, media accounts appear to have wholly glossed over
this discrepancy.
