Excerpt:
New York’s “vaccine czar” — a longtime adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — phoned county officials in the past two weeks in attempts to gauge their loyalty to the embattled governor amid an ongoing sexual harassment investigation, according to multiple officials.
One Democratic county executive was so unsettled by the outreach from Larry Schwartz, head of the state’s vaccine rollout, that the executive on Friday filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general’s office, the official told The Washington Post. The executive feared the county’s vaccine supply could suffer if Schwartz was not pleased with the executive’s response to his questions about support of the governor.
The executive said the conversation with Schwartz came in proximity to a separate conversation with another Cuomo administration official about vaccine distribution.
Author(s): Amy Brittain, Josh Dawsey
Publication Date: 14 March 2021
Publication Site: Washington Post