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New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees, creating a hostile work environment for women in violation of state and federal law, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday.

Hours after the release of a<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-report-on-allegations-of-sexual-harassment-by-andrew-cuomo/1752f40a-6cf1-41a4-830f-44f6eefb2843/" title="www.washingtonpost.com"> 165-page report</a> that detailed numerous allegations against Cuomo, President Biden said he believed the Democratic governor should resign, echoing a chorus of similar calls by other party officials. Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie (D) also said Cuomo could no longer remain in office, adding that state lawmakers will move forward “expeditiously” with an ongoing impeachment investigation.

Investigators laid out a devastating portrait of Cuomo’s behavior and extensive examples of unwanted  touching, including an incident last November in which Cuomo allegedly embraced an executive assistant and reached under her blouse to grab her breast. Witnesses also described an environment in the governor’s office that was abusive and vindictive, with one of the women who came forward targeted for retaliation through the release of her personnel file, investigators said.

In all, the independent probe found that Cuomo harassed 11 women, including a state trooper whom the governor arranged to be put on his detail.

“This investigation has revealed conduct that corrodes the very fabric and character of our state government,” James (D) said at a news conference.

The findings mark a new low for a once-celebrated Democratic star, who won an Emmy in 2020 for his nationally televised briefings during the pandemic, appeared on track for reelection to a fourth term in 2022 and was frequently discussed as a presidential contender. He is now isolated from his own party’s leadership, the result of a months-long investigation that was based on interviews with 179 people, including women who accused the governor of misconduct, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/cuomo-be-questioned-sex-harassment-inquiry/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Cuomo himself </a>and a coterie of his top advisers.

The probe was launched after multiple women <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/01/andrew-cuomo-timeline-what-he-said-about-sexual-harassment-vs-allegations-against-him/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">accused </a>Cuomo earlier this year of inappropriate personal comments or unwelcome physical contact.

On Tuesday, James deflected questions from reporters about whether Cuomo should resign, saying “that decision is ultimately up to the governor of the state of New York.” She said her office was not making any criminal referrals but noted that the report was publicly available.

Separately, Albany County District Attorney David Soares disclosed an ongoing criminal investigation of Cuomo by his office. “We will be formally requesting investigative materials obtained by the AG’s Office, and we welcome any victim to contact our office with additional information,” Soares said in a statement.

In a video address Tuesday afternoon, Cuomo maintained a defiant posture. He said he would continue serving as governor and defended himself as a champion of women and victims of sexual harassment. “The facts are much different than what has been portrayed,” he said.

“That’s not who I am,” the governor said of the depiction in the attorney general’s report.

Cuomo denied the claim that he groped an executive assistant’s breast. “That never happened,” he said. He said other complainants sought to “unfairly characterize and weaponize everyday interactions,” noting his tendency to greet women and men warmly.

After months of asking New Yorkers to withhold judgment until the attorney general’s report was released, his office released an extensive rebuttal document, calling the probe “an utterly biased investigation” that “willfully ignored evidence.”

The document included eight pages of photographs of Cuomo kissing and hugging other officials in public, and a second exhibit filled with photographs of other prominent Democratic officials, including  Biden, Vice President Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former president Barack Obama doing the same.

The governor also said he would bring in an “expert” to provide him and his office with sexual harassment training.

The extent of the political fallout for Cuomo remains to be seen. When asked about the report Tuesday afternoon, Biden told reporters, “I think he should resign.”

“Look, I’m not going to flyspeck this,” the president added. “I’m sure there are some embraces that were totally innocent. But apparently the attorney general decided there were things that weren’t.”

Pelosi and three House Democrats from New York also called on the governor to step down, joining about a dozen from the state delegation who had previously done so.

“We commend the brave women who came forward and spoke truth to power,” Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Thomas Suozzi and Gregory W. Meeks said in a statement. “The time has come for Governor Andrew Cuomo to do the right thing for the people of New York State and resign.”

The state’s two Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, also reiterated their calls for his resignation.

“No elected official is above the law,” they said in a statement. “The people of New York deserve better leadership in the governor’s office.”

And, in a rare move, the Democratic governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Rhode Island put out a joint statement saying they were “appalled” by the report’s findings and that Cuomo must step down.

The New York Assembly, whose judiciary committee has been conducting its own probe of the sexual harassment allegations, has the power to impeach Cuomo with a majority vote, which under the New York Constitution would prompt a trial by the state Senate and a group of senior state judges. That body could remove Cuomo from office by convicting him with a vote of two-thirds of its members.

On Tuesday, Heastie met with fellow Democrats and announced afterward that “it is abundantly clear to me that the governor has lost the confidence of the Assembly Democratic majority and that he can no longer remain in office.”

Richard Drew

[Read: Report on allegations of sexual harassment by Andrew Cuomo]

The governor also remains <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/andrew-cuomo-investigations/2021/06/08/8ab4a60e-be3d-11eb-9bae-5a86187646fe_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">under investigation</a> by federal and state authorities on a number of other issues, including his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-priority-covid-testing/2021/03/29/79d40aa0-8e6d-11eb-9423-04079921c915_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">preferred access </a>that Cuomo family members were given to coronavirus testing, and work that state employees did on a memoir about his leadership during the pandemic that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-coronavirus-pandemic-book-contract-investigation/2021/05/17/026f69f2-b74c-11eb-a5fe-bb49dc89a248_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">secured him </a>a $5 million advance.

The attorney general’s investigators detailed numerous occasions in which they said Cuomo violated sexual harassment statutes: The governor allegedly grabbed the buttocks of an employee of another state office, made sexually suggestive comments to a young female assistant and inappropriately touched other women not employed by the state.

Joon Kim, the former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York appointed by James to help lead the investigation, said some women “suffered through unwanted touching and grabbing of their most intimate body parts.”

“The executive chamber’s workplace culture was rife with bullying, fear and intimidation on one hand while normalizing frequent flirtations and gender-based comments by the governor on the other,” Kim added.

The report detailed the  account of a female state trooper in her late 20s, whose  allegations had not been previously reported, who was hired onto Cuomo’s detail after he met her, even though she did not have adequate experience. He would ask her questions about her attire, such as why she did not wear a dress, the report said. She told him it was impossible to carry a gun when wearing a dress.

The governor also touched the trooper inappropriately on several occasions, running his finger down her spine when he was standing behind her on an elevator, according to the report. In another episode, Cuomo allegedly ran his hand across her stomach as she held the door open for him at an event.

“I felt . . . completely violated because to me . . . that’s between my chest and my privates,” the trooper testified, adding: “But, you know, I’m here to do a job.”

Separately, the report detailed inappropriate behavior the governor allegedly exhibited toward a young executive assistant employed in his executive chamber — actions that escalated to unwanted  touching.

One day, Cuomo told her it was “about time you showed some leg” when she wore a dress, she told investigators, and later asked if she had kissed or “fooled around” with someone other than her husband.

At one point, the governor said to her something like, “If you were single, the things I would do to you,” she recalled.

In one incident in December 2019, he asked her to take a selfie with him and then “moved his hand to grab her butt cheek and began to rub it,” the report said. The  assistant was shaking so much that the photos were blurry.

Eleven months later, the  assistant was dispatched to assist Cuomo at the executive mansion. As she was leaving, he slammed the door shut and slid his hand up her blouse, cupping her breast, the report said.

“I remember thinking to myself who — I knew what just went on, I knew and he knew too that was wrong,” she told investigators. “And that I in no way, shape or form invited that nor did I ask for it. I didn’t want it. I feel like I was being taken advantage of.”

The assistant said she planned to stay quiet about what had happened and take it “to the grave,” but later told others after she grew distraught watching Cuomo deny publicly that he had ever touched a woman inappropriately.

The report also found that Cuomo made numerous suggestive sexual comments that constituted “unlawful sexual harassment.” These included telling the female state trooper that his criteria for a girlfriend was someone who “can handle pain,” suggesting a buttock tattoo to one aide and calling two executive assistants “mingle mamas” while asking one of them whether she would be willing to cheat on her partner.

In a long interview with investigators in late July, the governor admitted to some of the claims against him, according to special deputy Anne L. Clark, but put a “different spin on them,” she said. In some instances, he denied allegations or said he did not remember details.

The rebuttal document released by Cuomo on Tuesday disputes the characterizations of his accusers and argues that Cuomo maintained a “family” atmosphere in his office.

One of the photos in the document, meant to show how politicians regularly embrace those around them, included an image of former president George W. Bush and what appeared to be a storm victim. Cuomo defended himself against accusations by saying he kisses and teases everyone and learned some of his behaviors from his Italian parents.

“He is informal with his staff and banters with all employees, again, regardless of gender, in an effort to bring collegiality and levity to their high-pressure and demanding positions,” his attorney Rita Glavin wrote. “He is interested in their lives.”

But the women he targeted found Cuomo’s behavior humiliating, offensive or inappropriate, according to the investigation. In a text exchange with a close friend after one conversation with Cuomo, aide Charlotte Bennett wrote, “Something just happened and I can’t even type it out . . . GOING TO BURST INTO TEARS.”

On Tuesday, Bennett said that Cuomo’s response to the report was “uncomfortable and inappropriate.”

“Accepting responsibility means stepping down, so I don’t believe him, and I don’t want an apology,” she told “CBS Evening News.”

The claims surfaced publicly earlier this year when Lindsey Boylan, a former aide, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/24/lindsey-boylan-cuomo-sexual-harassment/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">wrote in an online post</a> that the governor had sexually harassed her for years, saying he touched her lower back and arms and once kissed her. His aides later released details from her personnel file, an action the investigation concluded was “unlawful retaliation.”

Days after Boylan’s post, then-former aide Bennett <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/27/charlotte-bennett-cuomo-sexual-harassment/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">alleged </a>in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/27/nyregion/cuomo-charlotte-bennett-sexual-harassment.html" title="www.nytimes.com">interview </a>with the New York Times that Cuomo made suggestive comments she interpreted as sexual advances.

Other women <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-toxic-workplace/2021/03/06/7f7c5b9c-7dd3-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">said </a>the governor quizzed them about their dating lives, part of an office culture they viewed as degrading and toxic.

[Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say]

The attorney general’s report found that Cuomo’s office did not handle complaints according to state law.

“We conclude that the Executive Chamber failed to follow its own policies and procedures related to sexual harassment in responding to several of the complaints,” the report said.

The governor and his aides sought to undermine the women who came forward and undercut the investigators, the report concluded.

After Boylan tweeted that the governor was “one of the biggest abusers of all time,” top aide Melissa DeRosa asked for her “full file.” It was then disseminated to a number of reporters over several days by Cuomo aides and advisers, according to the investigation.

Cuomo also drafted an op-ed to attack Boylan but was talked out of submitting it by advisers who reviewed it and found it to be “victim shaming that they found inadvisable.”

In addition, records uncovered by the investigators show that days after Cuomo said he welcomed the investigation, a longtime adviser said he was being asked to “spread oppo” — opposition research — about Kim in a bid to undermine him. At another point, Cuomo advisers asked for conversations with potential victims to be recorded for information they could use to potentially defend the governor. But the recordings weren’t used because they didn’t go well, DeRosa testified.

Other state officials were brought in to assist with damage control.

At one point, Larry Schwartz, the state’s vaccine czar and a longtime Cuomo adviser, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-schwartz-vaccine-calls/2021/03/14/18f2e320-8448-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">called </a>county executives to ask if they were going to issue public statements for the governor to resign, the report found.

The investigation said DeRosa, the governor’s top aide, requested the calls. At the time, vaccine doses were urgently needed, and the county officials were aware of Schwartz’s ability to influence distribution, the report said. One described himself as stunned and unsettled by the conversation.

[New York’s vaccine czar called county officials to gauge their loyalty to Cuomo amid sexual harassment investigation]

And CNN anchor Chris Cuomo helped his brother draft a statement to address the allegations and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/chris-cuomo-andrew-cuomo/2021/05/20/99579382-b7f9-11eb-bb84-6b92dedcd8ed_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">attended calls </a>with other advisers to discuss the matter, according to the investigation.

Chris Cuomo told investigators “there was discussion about remedial measures the Chamber should take in light of the sexual harassment allegations, but some people had taken the position that they should just wait,” according to the report.

The independent investigation was conducted by Kim, a partner at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, and Clark, a longtime employment and discrimination attorney. Both were appointed by James after Cuomo — under pressure from fellow Democrats — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-harassment-allegations/2021/03/01/2cb96df0-7acc-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">referred </a>allegations about his behavior to her office.

Debra Katz, a lawyer for Bennett, said the investigation showed “egregious” sexual harassment and that his inner circle was “aware of the allegations and enabled him to continually sexually harass women, or just moved the women out.”

She called Cuomo’s rebuttal “disturbing.”

“If he really cared about the treatment of women in New York state, he would step down,” she said.

Even before it was released, Cuomo and his team tried to undermine the report, claiming that James has been using the probe to burnish her standing for a possible gubernatorial run. They also have accused the attorney general’s office of disclosing information to the news media, without providing evidence of such leaks.

Cuomo had been expected to seek a fourth term next year and has retained an approval rating in New York around 50 percent despite the slew of allegations, though some of his advisers saw it as his toughest race yet.

Paul Kane, Mike DeBonis, Seung Min Kim and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.

White House Correspondents Award for Deadline Reporting

University of South Carolina

Josh Dawsey is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Before that, he covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.

Josh Dawsey

Lee Walczak Award for Political Analysis, National Press Club, 2013

New York Press Club Award for Political Coverage, 2014

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, MS in journalism

University of California at Santa Cruz, BA in literature

Michael Scherer is a national political reporter at The Washington Post. He was previously the Washington bureau chief for Time magazine, where he also served as the White House correspondent. Before joining Time, he was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com.