It seems New York’s top officials just don’t care if their donors are neck-deep in criminal bribery — because not one politician is moving to give back the tainted cash from Glenwood Management.
Glenwood is a de facto unindicted co-conspirator with two elected officials now convicted in corruption trials.
That is: Shelly Silver and the Skeloses took illegal payments; Glenwood made them — and did its best to cover it up.
That taints every one of the 14 million bucks Glenwood and its affiliates gave legally to other pols, parties and PACs in the last decade. But our leaders can’t seem to see it.
A spokesman for Gov. Cuomo’s campaign answered our query thusly: “The governor’s decisions are not influenced by contributions, as testimony at the trials showed. Anyone who is influenced shouldn’t be in office.”
We’ve had similar “no influence” protests from other campaigns.
But “influence” isn’t the point. It’s about keeping cash from a firm deeply involved in the corruption of two of New York’s highest officials.
Pols return crooks’ cash all the time. And escaping charges doesn’t make Glenwood clean.
Not that Albany’s ethical obtuseness ends there.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie just reappointed two “ethics watchdogs” originally named by the now-convicted Silver.
Renee Roth and Marvin Jacob got new five-year terms at the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a k a JCOPE.
This is absurd — even if Jacob plans to stick around only a few months.
The last thing Heastie should be doing is keeping any Silver remnants. Especially on an ethics panel — even a joke like JCOPE.
If Roth and Jacob were truly “ethical,” they would’ve quit JCOPE the minute their patron was convicted (if not before).
Same for ex-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ JCOPE picks — George Weissman, Joseph Covello and ex-state Sen. Mary Lou Rath.
Their terms expire this month; let’s hope Skelos’ successor, John Flanagan, is smart enough to offer an entirely new slate.
Then again, Flanagan’s still mum on returning Glenwood’s vast (and now-filthy) gifts to the Senate GOP campaign fund.
New York politics may be even more rancid than we’d imagined.