Cuomo purging archive as attorney general

(CBS News) Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., is reportedly sending aides to remove state archives documents from his time as the state's attorney general according to The New York Times, as talk of Cuomo as the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential primary heats up.

"The aides have declared off limits all of Mr. Cuomo's files related to a 2007 inquiry into the use of the State Police for political purposes, which was one of the most prominent public corruption investigations he oversaw as attorney general," reports the Times, also noting all documents sent by the governor will now be reviewed before being sent to the archives.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney deployed a similar tactic when he left office as governor of Massachusetts in 2007. According to a Reuters report, Romney spent almost $100,000 of taxpayer money replacing the computers used by his staff. The Romney administration also had its emails wiped when it left office, an unprecedented move by a Massachusetts governor.

Related: Romney paid $100,000 to purge computer records, report says

As for Cuomo, his office told The Times the documents they are removing should never have been public in the first place, and they are simply fixing that mistake.

However, not everyone in Cuomo's party is onboard, as The Times quotes former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer as saying these are, "documents that should be in the public domain," and he is "deeply troubled" by their removal.

As for the legal aspect, New York does have a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) that requires files be turned over to the archives. The Times details that, in the past, archivists have determined if the documents should be public or not, but now Cuomo's office has taken over that job.