Update: 4:30. The mystery continues.
A source close to the purported Williamsville girlfriend of Andrew Cuomo told correspondent Terese Reile that Cuomo was indeed in WNY on Thanksgiving, and that the governor did visit the house in question, making a brief appearance and then leaving.
Cuomo flew in by private plane, the source told Reile. It is about a 40-50 minute ride from Albany to Buffalo, a pleasant ride by private plane.
According to Reile, she was told there were a small group of people at the Williamsville house.
According to another source who once donated a private flight to Cuomo, the governor often takes private flights, paid for by donors to his campaigns or, if it is state business, paid for by taxpayers.
This was not likely state business. His purported girlfriend and her family are large donors to politicians and do significant business with the state.
Could the governor have sneaked away, fooling even his spokesperson Rich Azzopardi?
According to the person who once donated a private plane ride for Cuomo, the governor would likely report this trip on his personal financial statement on his ethics disclosure so we may find out sooner or later.
***
We have been told that there is a video of State Troopers telling protestors to leave the area around the house that Cuomo was supposedly visiting on Thanksgiving. If this is true it would seem to contradict the official narrative by State Police that there were no state police on the street where Cuomo’s reputed girlfriend lives.
We have called the owner of the purported video to see if he will share it with us in order that we may publish it.
Either the governor was there or he wasn’t. We will soon enough find out.
***
Updated 2:15 – Where are the photos?
In light of the State Police saying they were not on the Williamsville street, where protestors gathered outside a house where Gov. Cuomo was purportedly secretly visiting, there should be some photos. The protesters claimed that NY State Troopers were there to secure his privacy and actually ordered protestors away. In circumstances like these, there is almost always a photo or video taken by someone.
Where are the photos? We have asked the protestors to provide them or explain why they did not take any.
Updated 1:50 to reflect comments by William Beau Duffy, Director of Public Information at New York State Police, WNY photographer Jenna Freda and Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for the governor.
Updated to add comments by Rich Azzopardi, senior advisor to the governor, at 12:34 pm..
Editor’s Note: We are investigating whether it was a deliberate hoax perpetrated to embarrass Governor Andrew Cuomo, or a “jump to a hasty conclusion” moment, or if it is true that Gov. Cuomo was in the Buffalo area on Thanksgiving evening, visiting a private residence in apparent contravention of his own edict to stay home on the holiday to stem the spread of Covid 19.
We originally published a post by Terese Reile, who wrote that, according to a group of protesters at the scene, on Thanksgiving, just after dark, Cuomo arrived with a police escort and was seen entering a home in Williamsville.
While Terese did not say she saw the governor herself, she had the word of protestors she knew to be reliable, and reported it as such.
The story quickly went viral. Dissenting voices soon arose to debunk the story.
Supporting the possible veracity of the story is that we have been told by an independent source that the street in question was closed by state troopers.
In addition, a local photographer, Jenna Fredo, whose photos have been published in the Niagara Falls Reporter and elsewhere, said on Facebook that she also witnessed the street closed.
“I got a tip that Cuomo was at a house in Williamsville on thanksgiving at around 2:30pm. The person who told me, knows I have a camera with a telephoto lens. I tried getting angles from anywhere I could but I really couldn’t see much because of all of the trees in the area. All I saw was a woman drinking red wine at what looked to be the dinner table. Then right before it got dark, I went to go get coffee and was going to come back. My friend who was also there parked near the house, was motioned to leave the area by a state trooper. He left and I went back. Two troopers were blocking one entrance to the culdesac and another two were blocking the other entrance. There were also two that were behind me when I left. There was no reason for state troopers to be in a residential area and block off that culdesac if it wasn’t him. It was dark and I was driving when I saw the troopers so I didn’t get any pictures. I didn’t know if he was just getting there or leaving because I couldn’t see around the corner.”
The author of the the original post, Terese Reile went to the Williamsville street herself on Thanksgiving evening. By the time she got there, she says, Cuomo was gone [if he was ever there] and there were no Troopers.
The protestors were still there.
Reile reported that the protestors told her that they were there because they found it hypocritical of Cuomo to be visiting a private residence because he essentially wanted Thanksgiving canceled for everyone else.
The protestors further told Reile that the state police told them to leave the area and they went away. They came back with a larger group, they said. During the time they were ordered to leave, they said, Cuomo left the house, their assumption being that the troopers cleared the way for Cuomo to make his exit.
Reile did not see Cuomo.
The protesters told Reile that they learned about Cuomo’s private visit to a home in Williamsville from someone connected to his efforts to keep it a secret. In other words “a leak.”
The protesters added that the reason Cuomo chose this particular house is that it is the residence of his new girlfriend.
Artvoice is not naming the girlfriend identified by the protestors, She is a significant donor to the Democratic party.
The protestors, Terese said, also told her that Cuomo may have had his 89-year-old mother with him during this visit, something that seems strange on the face of it.
Defenders of Cuomo have said it is impossible that Cuomo was in Western New York since he did an Albany radio show at noon that day.
Further, the idea that Cuomo’ would bring his 89 year old mother with him lends an air of utter improbability to the story, they say.
Artvoice contacted Amherst Police and were told that Cuomo was not, as far as they knew, in the area on Thanksgiving.
William Beau Duffy, Director of Public Information for the New York State Police, told Artvoice that Gov. Cuomo was definitely not in WNY on Thanksgiving.
He wrote in an email, ‘A blog post on Artvoice was brought to my attention. It states that Governor Cuomo was in Western NY (Williamsville) on Thanksgiving. That is not true. The Governor was not in Western NY at any point on Thanksgiving Day. We would appreciate it if you could remove the post or have it edited with the correct information.”
In a phone conversation, Duffy was asked if New York State Troopers were on the Williamsville street in question on Thanksgiving, blocking off the cul de sac or waving people away.
He said he would check this out and get back to us.
Duffy got back to Artvoice about an hour later and said the “zone commander” whose zone encompasses the Williamsville area for the NY State Troopers said that state troopers were not on the street in question on Thanksgiving.
“Everybody’s telling me that we did not have anybody on that road on Thanksgiving Day from State Police, ” Duffy said.
In addition, a senior advisor for the governor, Rich Azzopardi, who describes himself as “Albany press guy via Long Island. ‘Andrew Cuomo’s bulldog spokesman’, Tweeted that Cuomo was not in WNY.
If it is true, it is worthwhile news. Not earth-shattering news, but curious, since most of us will likely agree that we don’t want leaders who tell us to do what they say, not what they do.
It most certainly can be settled. Cuomo must have been seen on Thanksgiving somewhere or other. Regardless of what we find, it is quite possible that people are going to believe or disbelieve it, not so much based on the evidence but on what they want to be true.
***
By Terese Reile
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that his Thanksgiving plans changed after outrage from New Yorkers about having his family for Thanksgiving while everyone was told not to.
Because of the backlash, it appears he backpedaled and said he was going to ‘work’ through Thanksgiving and that he was ‘too busy’ to celebrate.
He has repeatedly told New Yorkers that it is dangerous to mix households for Thanksgiving and tweeted last week, “the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving this year is with those in your immediate household. Spread thanks, not COVID.”
Did Cuomo’s Plans Change?
According to a group of local people who were on a cul de sac street in Williamsville, Cuomo was not working on this holiday and was not ‘too busy’ for a secret visit to his girlfriend who resides on the street.
Protestors showed up at the Williamsville home on Thanksgiving evening to protest Cuomo travelling to WBY to see a woman rumored to be his new girlfriend, they said. They also said that the governor brought his 89-year-old mother, Matilda, with him.
Gov. Cuomo has decreed Erie County to be an ‘orange zone’ regarding Covid 19 which means that for your ‘safety’ you should stay home, no unnecessary travel, and by all means, do not endanger the elderly by visiting them or travelling with them and do NOT mix households.
He went so far as to tell the people of NY that they could only have 10 people over to their house on Thanksgiving, which numerous sheriffs, including Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard, said he would not enforce.
According to the protestors at the scene, they were incensed because Cuomo defied his own orders and came into an orange zone or ‘hot spot’, (which he, himself declared), and IF he brought his elderly mother with him, then according to his daily briefings, he put his own mother in grave danger.
Several of the protestors told me they saw Cuomo get out of a vehicle and enter the Williamsville house.
If it is true that his mother accompanied him, as protesters say, and he didn’t see a risk in having her travel, one might conclude that his ‘orders’ are arbitrary and capricious.
According to the protestors, Cuomo had a police escort, and the road was blocked off.
“It’s hard,” Cuomo tweeted. “But I can’t think of a better gesture of love than to say, I’m making the tough choice to keep you & our family safe.”
The day before Thanksgiving, Cuomo was in Rochester accepting an Emmy for his acting skills throughout this ‘crisis’.
Governor Cuomo could not be reached for comment.
***
This story warrants further investigation and we are doing so. He was either there or he wasn’t. It is not a crime for him to have been there. If he has a new girlfriend, that is good news too. And if it was a made up story, a fiction, then how this came to be is significant.
If it was a deliberate fiction, then it is a scourge, that people deliberately lied to make some political statement, something that we must try to debunk and expose, whether it comes from the Left or the Right.
If it was a foolish case of hasty assumption – that people saw a street closed off by state troopers and believed or wanted to believe that it must have been the governor – requires an education in logic.
We intend to get to the bottom of it.
The post Updated 4:50: Stupid Hoax or Did Cuomo Really Go to Buffalo on Thanksgiving to Celebrate with Girlfriend? appeared first on Artvoice.