RUTHFULLY YOURS

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a disturbing new way to raise revenue: using government muscle to squeeze private organizations into “voluntarily” writing billion-dollar checks. That’s what he did to Fidelis Care, a nonprofit health plan affiliated with the Catholic Church, and its would-be buyer, Centene Corp.

In a murky deal announced on Good Friday, Fidelis and Centene agreed to pay the state $2 billion over four years. The payments are not technically required by law. But Fidelis and Centene agreed to them after a three-month pressure campaign by Mr. Cuomo, including overt and implied threats to seize the funds, block the sale or both.

Fidelis would seem an odd target for a gubernatorial money grab. Founded in 1993, it specializes in health coverage for the poor. With 1.6 million members, it is the largest purveyor of state-sponsored programs such as Medicaid managed care, Child Health Plus and the Essential Plan, as well as Medicare Advantage and commercial ObamaCare coverage. It has played a big role in reducing the state’s uninsured rate, and it has not been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

What sparked Mr. Cuomo’s campaign was Fidelis’s pending sale to Centene, announced in September, for a price of $3.75 billion. The bishops planned to put the money into a charitable foundation in support of health care for the needy. Mr. Cuomo argued that the state was entitled to $3 billion of the proceeds because Fidelis earned most of its revenue from state programs. By that logic, the state could skim the savings accounts of public employees when they retire.

He also cited the precedent of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, which yielded billions to the state when it converted to for-profit status in the mid-2000s. But that was a unique transaction under a narrowly tailored law that applies to no other company.

Despite lacking a legal claim to the money, Mr. Cuomo pursued it aggressively. Bills he submitted to the Legislature would not only have seized 80% of the proceeds from the sale but also raided Fidelis’s reserve accounts if the deal were canceled. The bishops would have paid either way. The sale needed regulatory approval from two state agencies, the departments of Health and of Financial Services, leaving it vulnerable to delay or rejection by Mr. Cuomo’s appointees. CONTINUE AT SITE

Washington is full of blather, bombast and bullsh-t, but a line about Robert Mueller was the most important thing spoken or written there last week:

“Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.”

Since Mueller’s office never says anything outside court publicly, who knew he had a spokesman or needed one?

The line was included in a Washington Post story that said Mueller told the White House that President Trump was not a target of the criminal investigation.

The story could be a big deal — if true. But the report is nonetheless remarkable because it was the first leak in memory that carried good news for Trump.

After breathless drip, drip, drip reports that had the president practically being frog-marched to a firing squad at dawn, the fever broke. Every dog has its day, and the Washington media decided this president’s day comes once every 15 months.

True to form, news outlets immediately pivoted back to their regularly scheduled programming of stories saying Trump is in imminent danger. The New York Times and ABC declared that George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, though a stranger to readers, is now Mueller’s hottest witness.

Enough.

The violent swings of the leaky pendulum make this an excellent moment to call timeout on the Mueller probe. What does he have, where is he going and when is he going to get there?