#Even the impeachment of Gov. Cuomo is just grist for corruption

Assemblyman Charles Lavine, who’s nominally in charge of the supposed Cuomo impeachment inquiry, admitted last week that there’s no end anywhere in sight. Nor will there be, until Speaker Carl Heastie decides he wants it.

At just the third Judiciary Committee meeting to even pretend to address the issue since the ball supposedly started rolling in March, Lavine merely announced that the $250,000 for outside lawyers at Davis Polk & Wardwell is just the start; the Assembly will spend as much “as needed” on its investigation.

Meanwhile, The Post’s Bernadette Hogan reported that Heastie dutifully played middleman when Gov. Andrew Cuomo wanted Assemblyman Ron Kim to walk back his truth-telling about the admission by top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa that Team Cuomo had intentionally kept legislators in the dark about the true COVID death toll in state nursing homes.

At the gov’s behest, Heastie had an aide “relay” Cuomo’s request that Kim deny what he’d already told the press. “I came to the conclusion that if I put out this statement, that I would be complicit in the coverup,” Kim told The Post.

And Heastie had his staff convey that invitation to help deceive the public, not the first time he’s had staff relay the gov’s threats.

So it stands to reason the Assembly’s impeachment probe won’t get very far until Cuomo tells Heastie it’s time to wrap it up. And, sadly, all Cuomo has to do in return is let the speaker have his way with public policy — the public interest be damned.

Pretty sordid, isn’t it, that even the effort to hold a governor to account for horrific abuse of his office is just grist for another corrupt bargain?