Where’s the watchdog?
Where’s the watchdog? (Bebeto Matthews/AP)

There was no reason to be surprised by the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics’s refusal to investigate former top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco, whose arguable misuse of state resources was well documented in a trial that led to his conviction for bribery; the flaccid panel is dysfunctional by design.

What is surprising, and disappointing, is the failure of the once-formidably independent state inspector general’s office to dig into one JCOPE commissioner’s complaint that someone improperly leaked confidential details about how others voted to Gov. Cuomo, who reportedly then complained to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie about it.


The IG’s office, led by Cuomo ally Letizia Tagliafierro, conducted a nine-month-long investigation, then deemed itself ultimately “unable to substantiate” the complaint. But the office’s investigatory efforts were more slapdash than serious.

In a two-and-a-half page letter IG officials sent JCOPE announcing the inquiry’s end last month, they reported interviewing JCOPE commissioners and staff under oath, ultimately determining that “no individual was able to provide firsthand knowledge of any leak or potential perpetrator; and any information provided was admittedly based on supposition and speculation.”

The IG never interviewed either Cuomo or Heastie, two individuals likeliest to possess firsthand knowledge of the alleged leak.

Contrast this to 2009, when Inspector General Joe Fisch investigated an alleged leaker in the state’s pre-JCOPE’s ethics commission, collecting dozens of records and sworn interviews, including from Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the man who appointed him, before releasing a 200-page report outlining the episode now known as “Troopergate.”