Simply days after Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced she was standing by her mendacity Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, who has repeatedly memory-holed subpoenas and chats with varied state and federal investigators probing his previous marketing campaign actions, Benjamin surrendered to arrest by the feds.
Oops.
The costs heart on his run for metropolis comptroller final yr; the FBI arrested one among his high fundraisers, Harlem actual property mogul Gerald Migdol, in November, charging him with wire fraud in unlawful funding of Benjamin’s marketing campaign.
That may’ve been a superb time to discover a new No. 2, Gov, approaching high of revelations that Benjamin lied on disclosure kinds to change into LG, pretending he’d by no means been below investigation when he knew he was on the time.
Or when the Times Union reported that Benjamin performed quick and unfastened with the state Senate’s per diem and journey reimbursement system in addition to state marketing campaign finance disclosure guidelines. After that broke, he reimbursed his marketing campaign committee to be used of its bank card on journeys coated by the Senate.

Or possibly final month, when the feds subpoenaed the state Senate over grants Benjamin might have steered to Buddies of Harlem Public Colleges Inc., a charity that Migdol managed.
It’s practically inconceivable to get Benjamin off the June main poll until he resigns, however his two challengers simply acquired an enormous increase: former Metropolis Councilwoman Diana Reyna and lefty activist Ana Maria Archila.
This mess provides to Hochul’s personal varied woes on the ethics entrance: Many assume she was far too beneficiant with the Buffalo Payments’ out-of-state homeowners in a deal for the taxpayers to cowl most prices for the staff’s new stadium, and she or he’s been completely Cuomoesque in her fundraising, hoovering up darkish cash from the actual property business.

Plus, she went together with a lame alternative for the state’s ethics panel that also leaves lawmakers selecting their very own ethics police. (It’s no coincidence that Benjamin faces federal costs, like former Meeting Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate chief Dean Skelos earlier than him.)
“I’ve the utmost confidence within the lieutenant governor,” Hochul advised reporters simply final week. If nothing else, she’s simply proved her personal judgment stinks.