Andrew Cuomo’s office received a request from the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York to “stand down” and not open a probe into the Working Families Party while the U.S. Attorney conducts a criminal probe, according to a law-enforcement source.

The source said this kind of request is common, noting the U.S. Attorney’s investigation is a criminal matter, and the A.G.’s would be a civil case. (One reason why Cuomo hasn’t opened a criminal probe into the W.F.P. is that the attorney general’s office can’t open that kind of case against a charity without a referral to their office, according to this source. So far, Cuomo has not received that referral.)

Liz Feld, the Republican mayor of Larchmont and founding member of New Yorkers for Growth–the group that made the request to probe the W.F.P.–said Cuomo’s office has in the past conducted an investigation into a matter that was already being looked at by another agency. One example, Feld cited, was Eliot Spitzer and that whole Troopergate mess.

The source said the situation wasn’t analogous–for example the Spitzer/Troopergate investigations were not federal.

A better comparison, this source said, is the Deutsch Bank fire, in which Cuomo held off an investigation when it was announced Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau was opening a criminal investigation.

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