Former NY Gov. Paterson says Cuomo Told Spitzer to Not Pick Him as Lt. Gov. in 2006

By Marty Raminoff

Former Gov. David Paterson has been tearing scandal-embroiled Gov. Andrew Cuomo since the latter announced his resignation.

On Sunday, Paterson spoke out about how Cuomo is not to be trusted, and had stabbed him in the back in 2006.  Paterson claimed that a young Cuomo had called then-gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer in 2006 to advise him not to choose Paterson as lieutenant governor.  “Apparently Andrew didn’t like that he had heard that Gov. Spitzer was going to pick me to be his lieutenant governor,” said Paterson in an interview on WABC 770’s ‘The Cats Roundtable’.  “So he calls up Spitzer’s office, then he tells … Spitzer, that I was erratic, disloyal, and that things would come out about me that would make him wish he had never chosen me to be his running mate,” Paterson said.

Spitzer had paid no heed to Cuomo, Paterson said. “The next morning, Andrew calls me, and he says, ‘What’s going on?’ Like I did something,” Paterson said.  He went on to recount how Cuomo had denied it.  “He said, ‘David, don’t listen to them. I didn’t say that stuff. They are trying to divide us.’ I said, ‘Andrew, what is it that we have to divide? We’re not married. We don’t own a business together. What are you talking about?’  Paterson, now 67, did end up becoming lieutenant governor under Spitzer, and went on to serve as the first black governor from 2008 to 2010, following Spitzer’s resignation.  “After that conversation, I’d have to say there was some distance between us. I was always pretty leery of anything he said to me,” Paterson said.

Cuomo had subsequently taken over as governor in 2011 and was in his third term when the sex- harassment investigation led him to step down.  On Thursday, Paterson had commented that Cuomo’s 14-day notice before resignation sounded “suspicious.”  “It was just a little puzzling that they wanted to have that amount of time,” Paterson told ‘The Brian Lehrer Show’.  “And what they’re going to do with that time … it’s suspicious, I’ll put it that way,” said Paterson.

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi, responding to Paterson’s claims Sunday, telling the Post, “The very idea that Gov. Cuomo was advising Spitzer on anything is comical.

“‎Everyone knows former Gov. Paterson makes his own truth to fit the moment, and I guess none of these hard feelings were a factor when the current governor made him state Democratic Party chair,” the rep added.