Democrat Party thugishness

NY Times: Cuomo "enforcer" silences critics

The New York Times reported Thursday that an aide described as Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's “enforcer” has confronted the Democrat's foes with warnings and tried to weaken Caroline Kennedy's bid to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. Senate.

The newspaper says Joseph Percoco, a special counsel to Cuomo, once confronted a labor leader after a union member heckled Cuomo. The leader, identified as the political director of the painters' union local, said Percoco told him, “I never forget.”The newspaper also said that while Cuomo publicly denied interest in the Senate appointment, Percoco worked the phones with labor leaders and elected officials questioning Kennedy's credentials and urging them not to endorse her.Cuomo refuses to say if he'll run for governor even as he holds governor-sized fundraisers.Cuomo, through office spokesman Richard Bamberger, refused to comment Thursday. A request to speak with Percoco received no response from the attorney general's office, which has been handling state and campaign inquiries. Bamberger insisted he wasn't speaking for the campaign, which didn't respond to a request for comment. State officials are prohibited from using state resources for political work.The state Republican Party said the article casts doubt on Cuomo's “own competency and judgment.”“If the New York Times' assertions are true, the fact Mr. Cuomo's special counsel, Joseph Percoco, has been given free reign by Cuomo himself to bully and threaten anyone standing in the way of Mr. Cuomo's objectives is anathema to the type of leadership New Yorkers are seeking,” said Alex Carey, spokesman for state GOP Chairman Ed Cox. “Advocating this type of behavior as a means of influencing others suggests Mr. Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer are cut from the same cloth, and we saw what Spitzer did for New York .”