CUOMO ACCUSER CLEARS CUOMO: MEDIA LIED FOR "CLICKS AND EYEBALLS"
ANA LISS TESTIFIED SHE "WAS JUST THROWN INTO THIS GROUP OF WOMEN WHO SAID “ FORMER GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO “SEXUALLY HARASSED ME AND I WANTED TO BE CLEAR THAT THE GOVERNOR DIDN’T SEXUALLY HARASS ME.”
Then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo talking about economic justice during the Great Recession, Feb. 11, 2009. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
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One of the first women to accuse then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo of overseeing a toxic workplace says WNYC's Gothamist news website and the Wall Street Journal falsely reported her account.
"I won't be characterized the way ... Gothamist put the—the story," former Cuomo aide Ana Liss testified under oath in July. Liss said she "was just thrown into this group of women who said the Governor sexually harassed me and I wanted to be clear that the Governor didn't sexually harass me."
The Wall Street Journal's report, Liss testified, "was a headline. A way to grab a headline and get a scoop."
Jimmy Vielkind, the Journal's reporter, "pulled from the interview and put in center stage, as part of the story, that little Ana Liss from Rochester, New York, thinks Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed her ... and that therefore he's a bad person."
"And that's not what I was trying to do," Liss said.
Liss is a former journalist herself. Reporters, she knows, sometime "cherry-pick what you say to suit a narrative that will elicit more clicks and eyeballs."
The Journal ignored emailed requests for comment. Vielkind also ignored a direct emailed request for comment.
Gothamist actually tried to short-circuit critical reporting of its Cuomo coverage by publishing a report last week suggesting Liss's deposition should be off-limits to reporters.
Truth should never be off-limits.
Liss testified in a court proceeding called a deposition. It was part of a federal sex discrimination lawsuit filed against Cuomo by an anonymous State Trooper. The Free Lance obtained a transcript of the deposition, small parts of which are redacted. The lawsuit remains ongoing.
Liss did not respond to text and voicemail messages inviting comment.
Ana Liss in the Wall Street Journal, Mar. 6, 2021. Photo Credit: screengrab.
Letitia James, the State Attorney General, issued an indictment-like 168-page report in Aug. 2021 alleging Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women. But no judge or jury has ever found Cuomo sexually harassed anyone. He has never been charged with a crime.
Liss's sworn account reveals the never-before-told story of what went on behind-the-scenes among the first women alleging then-Gov. Cuomo sexually harassed them and between the journalists reporting it, detailed by The Free Lance on Sunday.
Liss was the third woman, after Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, to accuse Cuomo of tolerating a Capital workplace Liss characterized as a "Mad Man-esque" snake-pit where workers were expected to dress well and compete in an overt and covert Machiavellian struggle for power and prestige.
"And it was sort of survival of the fittest," Liss explained, "there was jostling for position and proximity to the Governor and others that were in power."
In order to win and keep your job, Liss said, "you have to be as vicious as you are educated and connected."
Instead of reporting Liss's true story, Gothamist made one up portraying Cuomo as a leering pervert who eye-fucked Liss everyday.
"Ana Liss was in her twenties when she won a fellowship to work in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office in 2013," the report, “It's The Cuomo Way,” dated Mar. 4, 2021, claimed. "She was surprised, upon arriving, to be quickly invited by senior staffers to sit at a desk positioned right near the governor—in his 'line of sight,' as she described it."
Liss actually worked several offices away—at least three—from the Governor’s office. Also, Cuomo mostly worked out of his New York City office. He was rarely in Albany. Only when he was, did he sometimes walk near Liss. It was only then that she entered Cuomo's "line of sight."
"I didn't mean that I was placed within his regular line of sight," Liss testified.
"I wasn't trying to lead anyone to believe that I was sitting in his direct purview," Liss emphasized, "within his direct line of sight when he was seated at his workspace."
WNYC, which owns and operates Gothamist, ignored an emailed request for comment. Gwynne Hogan, the reporter, no longer works at Gothamist. She also ignored a direct request for comment.
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