Politics

Cuomo trashes a Trump pardon of crooked ex-Assembly boss Sheldon Silver

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday attacked President Trump over a potential pardon of Sheldon Silver, the corrupt former speaker of the New York Assembly — and suggested it could be “a favor for someone in the Jewish community.”

During a radio interview in Albany, Cuomo called the notion of freeing Silver from prison — where the Manhattan Democrat is serving 6 1/2 years for a $4 million bribery and kickbacks scheme — “just confounding” and the culmination of “four years of bizarre.”

“It’s almost as if he’s trying to purposefully create anarchy and desecrate the entire system on the way out the door…he’s making a mockery of everything,” Cuomo said of Trump granting Silver a pardon.

When WAMC radio host Alan Chartock suggested that Trump “needed to have a Democrat in there,” Cuomo responded, “I don’t think it’s that premeditated” — before alluding to the fact that Silver is an Orthodox Jew.

“It could just be a favor for some contact, a favor for someone in the Jewish community, a favor for a donor, ” he said.

“Who knows what it is? He does not need a logical explanation for his actions. We’ve learned that.”

President Donald Trump giving his farewell address to the nation.
President Donald Trump giving his farewell address to the nation. EPA/WHITE HOUSE / HANDOUT

Trump — who’s granted clemency to about 90 people since 2017 — is expected to announce a batch of last-minute pardons and commutations sometime before Wednesday’s noon inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Silver was initially convicted in 2015 but avoided prison by mounting an appeal that scored him a new trial, then was convicted again in 2018 — only to remain free pending another appeal.

Silver finally started serving his sentence in August, but not until after threatening to punch out a Post photographer in front of his Lower East Side apartment building.