Andrew Whitman launched right into questions on Latimer’s skipped senate votes and his trip to London with his girlfriend.
First on FiOS1: Major developments in race for Westchester Executive
WHITMAN: People have been talking all day about these questions that have popped up about your personal life. We wanted, we reached out to you earlier you said you wouldn’t discuss it. I want to give you an another opportunity to clear the air on that
LATIMER: Well see. Let me differentiate. I think that there are issues that have been raised, attacks that have been raised against me that fall within the governmental context and so to the extent that those things involve my public life I’m happy to answer them. When things fall into a personal area then I reserve the right to discuss whether I think they should or shouldn’t be public matters
WHITMAN: Understood but you know as well as I you will be dogged with questions about this every day from now until election day
LATIMER: Right
WHITMAN: …until you put it aside or put it behind you. And I’ll give you another opportunity to do that.
LATIMER: Look, I think I’m happy to discuss any of the substantive issues that that we have to discuss and that’s really what my purpose is in running for public office.
WHITMAN: And just bear with me, we know that, you admit, you already told us, you missed an education funding vote in April uh there were…
LATIMER: Let me…
WHITMAN: There were some quotes that the New York Post had from some of your colleagues that it was odd that you missed a budget vote because you were already running for County Executive and that nobody knew it was with another woman, as reported.
LATIMER: Hold on, hold on, hold on for a second Andrew. Let. I don’t know what anonymous sources have said. Let me tell you the circumstances in terms of that which is the public side of this. We have uh eleven votes that make up the uh state budget. All right? There are eleven separate votes. I voted in eight of those, three of those were the last three votes that would close off the budget. The due date for the budget is always March 31st. I’m in Albany straight through to March 31st and stayed a few days extra as we were expected to do to close off the budget. They sent us back to our districts then they called us back up to Albany and they said in the consecutive days we would finish the budget sometime in the first week of April. I was very clear with leadership in my party my side of the house and across the aisle that I would not be available from the point of time of the 7th on and that was that was for private purposes. Now. now When. When I left on the Wednesday. We were released on Wednesday. The dialog was and you can look at it on various blogs uh Senator John DeFrancisco, the Republic Majority Leader, says we don’t expect to come back until the end of the month then within a day or two they decide we got closure. We’re going to do a hurry-up meeting on Palm Sunday. That’s how it played out that I was not available to be there for that meeting.
WHITMAN: Quickly and then we’ll pivot to the other…When you missed that vote were you in London?
LATIMER: I was not in Albany. I was not in New York.
WHITMAN: Were you alone?
LATIMER: Andrew, I’ve already expressed my exp…my approach on these issues and I think at this point either you respect my opinion on how I want to frame this or not because you could ask me about what I was doing last Saturday night on my own personal time.
WHITMAN: I understand that…
LATIMER: I understand…
WHITMAN: …but similarly you have to respect that my right to ask the question and the desire of people to answer it.
LATIMER: I understand your interest but I have answered it every single time that I can
WHITMAN: You’ve you’ve probably seen this from Talk of the Sound asking if you had a relationship with Judge Susan Kettner. I’ll ask you that pointedly now.
LATIMER: I will tell you again that the Talk. Well first Let me say this. The Talk of the Sound is not a legitimate information source, it is a political blog by an ideological individual who makes it a point of trying to skewer Democrats routinely. I’m sure you’ve done your homework, you’ve read the archives. You will never see an investigative report about a Republican you will only see an investigative report on a Democrat. So, I don’t treat that as a news source worthy of my dialog with. I’ve tried to be responsible on the public policy issues. I was asked a question about a car accident that happened in a public setting and I answered the questions honestly and completely. They chose in that particular blog to misrepresent what happened that day so I choose not to answer their questions directly.
WHITMAN: And I appreciate that, I really do, and I appreciate that you consider FioS a legitimate news source and as a legitimate news source I’ll just ask one more time if you care to comment on the status uh
LATIMER: Andrew, I don’t think you need to ask it again.
WHITMAN: That’s fine.
LATIMER: I’ve been very straightforward about it.
WHITMAN: OK.
LATIMER: Matters that. Let me be clear. Matters that are personal remain personal. Matters that are public there is every right for the public to understand and know about.
WHITMAN: OK. Now let’s move on…
As is now apparent based on earlier parts of this article what Latimer is telling Whitman about me and Talk of the Sound are just more lies and deceptions.
Even a cursory glance through a decade of Talk of the Sound archives will put the lie to Latimer’s claim that Talk of the Sound is a “political blog”; we cover a broad range of topics focused on New Rochelle. I am not remotely close to being an ideologue. I admit to being a cynic but who could blame me? I do not make it a point to skewer Democrats through my investigative reporting. In fact, very little of my investigations involved elected officials. Latimer may be partially right when he says “You will never see an investigative report about a Republican” on Talk of the Sound. But the same is also true of Democrats. It is utterly false to say “you will only see an investigative report on a Democrat”. The reality is I am going after pedophiles, dirty cops, crooked contractors and thieves working in the public sector in New Rochelle. Their political affiliation is immaterial to me. There is no one who believes I would ignore a corrupt person stealing from our schools just because they were a Republican. I can say for sure I never asked a crook what party they were in before running a story.
As for Latimer’s claim, “I don’t treat (Talk of the Sound) as a news source worthy of my dialog with,” besides the recent emails I published I have years worth of “dialog” with George Latimer and he ever raised a single concern about my reporting until the car crash story.
I do not even need to comment on Latimer’s absurd claim that in response to my car crash questions, “I answered the questions honestly and completely.” The emails speak for themselves. This is a huge lie.
A moment later he reverses himself, saying “I choose not to answer their questions directly”; his supposed pretext is both wrong and backwards when he claims what happened that day was misrepresented in my article.
No. I accurately reported what happened. Latimer appears to have run a red light and caused a serious car crash then lied about why to the police. Even a little-leaguer knows the “sun got in my eyes, coach” excuse is not going to fly. That Latimer tried it anyway speaks to his nature as a reflexive liar.
In hindsight, he was not stonewalling me with his hostile emails because he was in a car crash but because he knew it could open up a can of worms – and we now know it did.
Asked by Whitman whether he went to London and was he alone, Latimer says ”I have answered it every single time that I can”. Later he says “I’ve been very straightforward about it.”
Uh, no. He has NEVER answered the London/Alone question or been straightforward about doing so. In fact, the exact opposite is the case.
On October 27th, The Journal News jumped in on my Jeep registration suspension / parking tickets story and blew that story into the stratosphere.
Who is George Latimer? Table of Contents