Then he disappeared. Starting around mid-May, there were no more McKinley bylines on Cuomo, or on any other topic. When the governor resigned in August 2021 following a report from the New York attorney general, McKinley wasn’t there to tell the tale. New York politics insiders whispered and wondered about what had happened.
An upcoming book ventures an explanation. “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis” is a political memoir by Melissa DeRosa, who served as Cuomo’s top aide during the period. In the book, DeRosa claims that McKinley behaved inappropriately with her after a discussion at his home. In a statement to the Erik Wemple Blog, the Times says that an “independent, external investigation did not substantiate Ms. DeRosa’s characterization of the events.” The newspaper, however, did reassign McKinley to a new beat away from the Capitol.
In her book, DeRosa criticizes the Times investigation, alleging that it interviewed 11 of McKinley’s colleagues but didn’t speak to five people in whom she’d confided right after the incident.
“What’s Left Unsaid” weaves the McKinley tale together with an insider’s view of the various public crises, including the covid-19 response that ultimately swallowed Cuomo’s governorship. The McKinley incident adds the wrinkle that the lead reporter for the Times on a sexual harassment scandal was himself accused of an offense similar to the ones he was documenting.
Acrimony is the starting point for the DeRosa-McKinley story. Journalists often must have adversarial relationships with their subjects, and the Albany press corps most certainly met its professional obligations vis-à-vis the former governor. Cuomo and his aides gave as good as they got. In April 2021, the Erik Wemple Blog documented how the control-freakish Cuomo administration welcomed reporters’ questions when the governor was riding high in 2020 in the early weeks of the pandemic, but then marginalized them when times turned sour.
DeRosa acknowledges this dynamic in her book: “We fought for every comma and every word, sometimes calling editors at 11:00 p.m. or 6:00 a.m. to argue over the way something was phrased or demand a correction on a detail we believed was factually inaccurate,” writes DeRosa, who later writes of her regret over this approach. “The fights were often contentious, sometimes crossing over into being nasty.”
That was the backdrop for a Cuomo news conference on May 20, 2020. McKinley seized on the state government’s widely panned handling of covid-19 in nursing homes. Did the governor regret the state’s role in the situation? “Well, you have to remember the facts. I know you’re the New York Times, but facts are still facts,” Cuomo fired back.
The chippy exchange left an impression on DeRosa. So she rang up McKinley to arrange an air-clearing meeting. Conscious of pandemic social distancing, they met in McKinley’s backyard. They also drank, with McKinley downing more than a bottle of wine on his own, according to DeRosa’s book. (She reports that she stopped at two glasses.) Believing that she’d accomplished her goal, DeRosa started gathering her things to go. “Wait, are your eyes blue or green?” McKinley asked. “Blue,” DeRosa replied.
“Are you sure? I think they look green,” said McKinley. With this turn in the conversation, DeRosa decided that it was “absolutely time to go,” as she writes in the book. At that point, she recounts, McKinley grabbed her on the wrist and pulled her toward him. “Don’t go, Melissa. It’s still early. Stay longer,” he implored.
She claims that McKinley kept holding on for a few seconds longer, until she pulled her arm away, gathered her things and “jetted” back through the house and onto the street.
The Erik Wemple Blog spoke with three of DeRosa’s former colleagues in the New York executive chamber and an Albany insider, all of whom said they received a rundown of this episode from DeRosa shortly after it occurred. (All four say they were not contacted by the Times investigation.) DeRosa writes that she also recounted the incident to another Times reporter, Nicholas Confessore, a longtime friend who expressed his sympathies, according to the book.
Nearly a year later, the Cuomo scandal was all over the news. DeRosa told Confessore at the time, “It’s not lost on me that the Times has Jesse McKinley driving the train” on the harassment allegations. According to the book, Confessore replied that he’d told Carolyn Ryan, a masthead editor at the Times who oversaw newsroom personnel, about DeRosa’s backyard encounter with McKinley.
DeRosa reports she was “dumbfounded” by what seemed like a failure to take action.
DeRosa then contacted her lawyers, who learned from the Times that the incident didn’t warrant an investigation because the information hadn’t arrived via “official channels,” according to “What’s Left Unsaid.” DeRosa’s lawyers fixed that: They promptly sent an official complaint to the Times.
The Times disputes the assertion that complaints must arrive via “official channels.” “We investigate every complaint that we receive,” says the newspaper in a statement. “In 2020, Ms. DeRosa spoke with a friend, who works at The Times. In that conversation, there was no indication that she was making a complaint,” the paper explained. “Ms. DeRosa was regularly in touch with senior editors at The Times and could have raised any concerns she had with them.”
In “What’s Left Unsaid,” DeRosa writes that her associates were unsurprised by the story of her encounter with McKinley. Others had witnessed him become aggressive or cross professional boundaries when he drank, according to the book. The Erik Wemple Blog has found at least some apparent corroboration for her claims. A former New York state politician, for instance, told us that in 2019, McKinley joined her and an associate for dinner at an Albany restaurant, became quickly impaired, ate off her plate and, when the other diner wandered off for a bit, told the woman, “You’re super cute.” (A Times source says McKinley doesn’t recall these specifics.) A former top state official said McKinley grabbed her on the rear end at an Albany bar and later made faces at her. (A Times source says: McKinley insists he would “never grab anyone in that way;” and adds that the newspaper received an allegation resembling this one during its investigation, but the “anonymous source” declined to speak with the Times.) And DeRosa’s book alleges that in Cuomo’s first term, McKinley got drunk and came on to a staffer in Cuomo’s office — an indiscretion that he apologized for via email the next day. (A Times source says McKinley rejects this claim.)
The Times issued a statement saying, “We take all allegations very seriously and are reviewing the new accounts.”
McKinley did not respond to phone messages and a Times source said he declined an interview.
In its statement, the Times said it supported McKinley’s decision to enroll in a substance abuse program, the intensive phase of which coincided with his byline outage. It also said that following the company’s investigation of DeRosa’s complaint, “The Times and McKinley agreed that reassignment to a new beat was advisable.” He would no longer serve as Albany bureau chief, said a Times announcement, and would take on the title of “roving upstate correspondent.”
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