contest impeachment, he'd have made the legislature and State government look like a 'ship of fools'.
"“I feel like I did the right thing. I did the right thing for the state,” he said of his resignation. “I’m not gonna drag the state through the mud, through a three-month, four-month impeachment, and then win, and have made the State Legislature and the state government look like a ship of fools, when everything I’ve done all my life was for the exact opposite. I’m not doing that. I feel good. I’m not a martyr. It’s just, I saw the options, option A, option B.”"
The Cuomo Touch How he lost the governorship.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-cuomo-resigns.html