When New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday that an independent probe found Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed almost a dozen women, the state’s top law-enforcement officer never had the option of filing criminal charges against him.
Under New York’s executive law, the attorney general can’t open criminal investigations or bring charges without a green light from the governor or one of his department heads. James never got such approval.
The law is so quirky that James needed a hard-fought referral from Cuomo’s office in March simply to open her limited civil inquiry, which culminated in a damning 165-page ...