Mike Fayette broke the rules. An engineer at the New York State Transportation Department, he gave an interview to a reporter from The Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

In the interview, Mr. Fayette praised Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the transportation workers who had labored to repair roads and bridges washed out by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. No matter. His supervisors said he had not been authorized to speak to the press, and they moved to fire him; he retired instead and left in February.

The story might have ended there — strange but small — but for the Cuomo administration’s reaction to an article about it that appeared on Wednesday in The Daily Enterprise.

On Thursday, livid that an engineer in the Adirondacks was being portrayed as a victim of Mr. Cuomo’s penchant for control, a top aide to the governor, Howard B. Glaser, took to the airwaves. He read aloud Mr. Fayette’s disciplinary history, describing him as a troubled employee who had previously been penalized for having an improper relationship with a subordinate, misusing his work e-mail to send sexually explicit messages and using his state-assigned vehicle for personal errands.