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Cahill calls on Schneiderman to return contributions tied to Moreland probe

Ryan Delaney
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WRVO
John Cahill says Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should return some of the contributions given to himby donors who were targeted by the Moreland Comission's subpoenas.

John Cahill, the Republican candidate for New York state attorney general was in Syracuse Thursday to call on current Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to discuss his role in the now-defunct Moreland Act Commission and to return contributions he received from people and groups that were subpoenaed by the commission.

"It is about time for the attorney general to stand up and do at least one thing right, in respect to his involvement with the Moreland Commission," Cahill said. "And that's to return the contributions from those entities and those individuals that were related to the subject of his subpoenas."

Credit citizenactionny / via Flickr
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via Flickr
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2010.

Schneiderman has said he won't discuss the Moreland Commission because it's part of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office. But Cahill contends there are some answers he'd like to get from Schneiderman that have nothing to do with the investigation itself.

"Why he did nothing, you can only assume that was because his financial contributors were subject to the subpoenas of the Moreland Commission," Cahill explained. "He has not stood up for the independence of that commission once during the almost year that it was convened."

The commission was ended earlier this year as part of a budget agreement between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature, but recent reports have implicated that the governor's office may have been meddling in ongoing investigations.

Cahill alleges that Schneiderman, who was given the power to deputize the commissioners as assistant attorneys general, did nothing, especially at a time when he says the commission was being compromised by the governor's office.

"Clearly the attorney general was either complicit, asleep at the switch, or disinterested in one of the most important commissions that Albany created to get to the bottom of corruption in Albany," he said.

Schneiderman's campaign issued a statement following Cahill's press conference defending the attorney general's record, saying the attorney general has "prosecuted more than 50 politicians, government employees and nonprofit officials who abused the public trust."