New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is under investigation in Manhattan and his office is under transition to an acting director less than a day after a report alleging he abused several women forced his abrupt resignation.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has opened a probe into the allegations, the office said in a statement. Schneiderman said he’ll resign at the end of business on Tuesday after the New Yorker published a report Monday evening outlining allegations of physical violence by four women.
Schneiderman, 63, built his reputation as a tough enforcer of Wall Street, a self-styled advocate for women and more recently an outspoken foe of President Donald Trump. New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood will take over the office until a permanent successor is appointed by the state legislature. It isn’t immediately clear whether the scandal will impact investigations his office launched during his tenure, which also include Exxon’s accounting practices relating to climate change.
Schneiderman’s stunning and swift collapse, coming just hours after the New Yorker published its story, is a blow to the national Democratic party following the December resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken amid allegations of groping. Schneiderman had earned national recognition for playing a central role in resisting the Trump’s administration policies. His legal filings on behalf of New York against the travel ban, rescission of protections for children of undocumented immigrants, anti-LGBT measures and women’s access to contraception were accompanied by scathing remarks against Trump’s agenda.
‘Strongly Contest’
Schneiderman said “I strongly contest” the allegations, but said he’s stepping down because “they will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time.” Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for his office, declined to comment on the Vance investigation.
The New York City native, in office since 2011, had planned to run for re-election in November. Underwood, 72, is a former Yale Law School professor who once worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and served as acting U.S. solicitor general from 1998 to 2001. She’s argued 20 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In New York, she worked in senior positions in state and federal prosecutors’ offices in Brooklyn and Queens.
Schneiderman’s resignation comes amid a national reckoning spurred by the “Me Too” movement and reports of sexual abuse and harassment by powerful men. In public Schneiderman has vocally defended the rights of women, a stance critics including Donald Trump Jr. and senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway mocked on Twitter Monday night.
“Gotcha,” Conway tweeted Monday, after posting Schneiderman’s October 2017 tweet to Trump that “No one is above the law.”
The allegations against Schneiderman are especially dramatic because they follow years of legislative and legal advocacy for women’s rights, including protecting women from physical and sexual abuse. Among the laws he helped pass during his 12 years in the New York state senate was a penalty for strangulation.