RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The attorney general of New York abruptly resigned last night. Eric Schneiderman's announcement came just hours after The New Yorker magazine published an article that detailed accounts by several women who say that he physically abused them. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has now opened an investigation into the reported allegations. Schneiderman denies the charges against him.
Until now, the New York Democrat had been a strong voice in the Me Too movement, speaking out against the harassment and abuse of women. In fact, Schneiderman had been in the middle of prosecuting one of the legal cases against Harvey Weinstein. Here's Schneiderman denouncing the film mogul.
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ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN: The conduct, really, was shocking. The pattern of abuse, the use of employees to manipulate his targets or victims of sexual harassment, is just really astonishing.
MARTIN: Jane Mayer co-wrote the New Yorker piece that led to Schneiderman's resignation, and she joins us now.
Thanks for being with us, Jane.
JANE MAYER: Good to be with you.
MARTIN: And before we start, we should just warn our listeners, details of the story may not be suitable for everybody. So let's get right to it, Jane. What do these women accuse the former attorney general of doing?
MAYER: They basically describe a pattern of abuse in which he subjected them to nonconsensual violence of various sorts. But mostly, he slapped them repeatedly across the face very hard, very unexpectedly and then also, when he was having sex with them, and he also choked them in bed. And...
MARTIN: We should say these are women that Schneiderman was in relationships with at the time of the abuse.
MAYER: Right. He was involved with them or in - most of them were former girlfriends. One of them is someone he was just making an advance on. She's a very well-known attorney in New York City. And he, out of the blue, suddenly let loose and just hit her incredibly hard across the face twice, and she was completely stunned, and started sobbing and took pictures, which The New Yorker saw. The next day, you could still see the mark - raised mark on her face. So it was - you know, just one such case maybe would've been more than we could've - you know, not quite enough to make you really believe it because he is such a progressive advocate for women. But it - having done the reporting and spoken to all of the women, it - the same details kept coming back over and over again. And it's...
MARTIN: Oh, right, and these are women you point out in the piece, they weren't talking. They didn't even know each other, and their stories were lining up.
MAYER: Yeah, absolutely, and over many years' time, the same thing over and over again. And he demeaned them in spoken language. I don't think I'll probably share it with the MORNING viewers - listeners. But it was just incredibly ugly other than - I mean, some of it, you can talk about. He - one woman who is Sri Lankan said that he called her his brown slave and made her say that she was his property, and he would keep slapping her across the face until she said so.
MARTIN: And death threats - death threats.
MAYER: There were death threats, yeah. I mean, he said if they ever broke up with him or ever went public about this, he'd have to kill them. He said to one that he could have her followed and have her phones tapped. And he said to another, when she sort of made some complaint about something - I think was about jaywalking, basically - that he was being - dragging her across the street - and she said, it's against the law, and he said, I am the law.
MARTIN: Wow.
MAYER: And she said, if there's ever a sentence that summed him up, it would be that.
MARTIN: So clearly, it's different when the perpetrator is someone who is in such a high position, who is "the law," quote, unquote. What finally...
MAYER: He's the highest law enforcement officer in New York state. And it created a lot of - an incredible amount of fear among these women. Some of them didn't go on the record because they really continue to be so frightened. And if - it's not just that he would come after them, necessarily, but that it would ruin them in some way. You know, there's still such a stigma - and that no one would believe them and...
MARTIN: What finally compelled them to change their mind?
MAYER: I think it was the moment in history here, the sort of Me Too movement and the - when Rob Porter was - the White House aide resigned because of allegations from his former wives that he'd abused them. These are women who are feminist activists. And they felt really - they struggled with it and felt, you know, how can we cheer on other women and not tell what we know? And they gradually came forward.
MARTIN: And of course, the great irony is that Schneiderman himself cast himself as a champion of victims of abuse.
MAYER: He did. And he's got a position - I mean, he had a position overseeing the Weinstein case in New York.
MARTIN: Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. We appreciate you sharing your reporting this morning with us. Thank you so much.
MAYER: Good to be with you. Bye-bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.