Andrew Cuomo, Esq.
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Andrew Cuomo won’t say exactly what he did for Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson to earn the $404,000 the law firm paid him last year. That’s for less than full time work; after all, he has spent some time lately running for governor. The other contender for the Democratic nomination, Carl McCall, wants to know what Mr. Cuomo did to earn that money. Who were Mr. Cuomo’s clients? Will any of them have business before the state if Mr. Cuomo is elected governor? Mr. Cuomo and his campaign have so far refused to answer such questions. They want to dismiss them as simply an attempt to embarrass the Cuomo scion politically. But no doubt many New Yorkers share Mr. McCall’s curiosity.
They have, after all, just watched a long-time member of the state senate from the Bronx surrender to the authorities to be brought up on charges that money was funneled to him through a law firm in which he was allegedly a silent partner. The senator, Guy Velella, insists he’s innocent, but lots of people are looking forward to seeing what turns up at the trial.
No one is saying Mr. Cuomo has done anything illegal. But he and his law firm have refused to outline even the sketchiest details of his arrangements there. Does he share in the general profits that the firm earns representing clients like Goldman Sachs and General Electric? Or does he just represent and profit from a few handpicked clients of his own? If so, who are they? If gaining the governorship is important as Mr. Cuomo says it is, it’s hard to think of why these kinds of disclosures would be difficult.
Mayor Giuliani, early in his long slog to the mayoralty, resigned from White & Case after the newspapers pointed out that the firm had offices in Saudi Arabia and that it represented banks that had made large loans to the government of South Africa and were suspected of laundering drug money from Manuel Noriega. Despite the fact that Mr. Giuliani did not represent any Saudi clients or any of the banks in question, he eliminated any doubts or nagging questions. Mr. Cuomo has a similar opportunity to set a standard up to which others will look for years to come.
