Our governor is in trouble.

How deeply, whether it will prove to be a minor blip or a career ender isn't yet clear, and may not be for some time. But make no mistake, seemingly out of the blue the full range of possibilities for the fate and future of Andrew Cuomo is suddenly, not distantly, imaginable, regardless of how high he's cruising in public popularity at the moment.

And, ominously for the governor, for the first time since awkwardly losing a primary bid for the office upon which he now seems to have a lock, dictating the outcome of his looming legal and political troubles and spinning their consequences are largely out of his hands. As an intense micro-manager and a master manipulator of public opinion legendary for exercising control, he must be in considerable discomfort.

His fate, his future, is to a large degree in the hands of federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, a formidable corruption fighter who is not intimidated by the governor, or the office. Bharara is already on record as being critical of Cuomo's peremptory disbanding of the highly touted Moreland Commission in the middle of its public corruption investigation, and has promised to look into it. That corruption comes in many forms, and is limited to the Legislature, seems to be Bahara's general message.

The federal prosecutor also pointedly took over the work of the disbanded commission and has since charged two high-ranking Republican legislators, with presumably more legislators waiting in line for scrutiny and indictments.

What Preet Bharara has in mind for Andrew Cuomo is the $35 million question, roughly the amount the governor has in his political war chest heading into what is so far an easy re-election and a possible later presidential bid.

Anything's possible, from a free ride to an indictment. And as we well know from the prosecutor's history of legislative indictments, the sword will hang in the air until Bharara is ready to drop it, or not.

The instrument of the governor's sudden reversals that cast doubt on his future is the devastating New York Times front page story last week that in stunning detail showed the deep and persistent involvement of the governor and his assistant, Larry Schwartz, in the workings of the supposedly independent Moreland Commission. Subpoenas were quashed, investigations in effect steered. While much of what the Times story said had already been reported, the narrative is seamless and complete — and damning. A 13-page response from the governor's office to questions posed by the Times repeatedly leaned on the assertion that the Moreland Commission was entirely Cuomo's and therefore he could not interfere with it because it was his to play with as he wished. It was never independent, the response claimed. That's quite an admission for the governor to make — that he deliberately deceived the public and those serving on the commission into thinking it would be independent and dictate its own course.

Such a drastic admission more than hints that the governor is girding for worse than being called a liar.

David Grandeau, former head of the State Lobbying Commission, and an overlord on governmental ethics, says the governor and Schwartz are legally vulnerable because the Moreland commissioners were also deputized as deputy attorneys general. This Moreland Commission was more than the average governor's Moreland Commission. Official misconduct and obstruction of justice come to mind, said Grandeau. How a federal prosecutor plays with those is an interesting question, but as has been noted before, it's never a good plan to be in a federal prosecutor's crosshairs, especially because the political consequences of even receiving a subpoena brings the stink of uncontrollable scandal closer and closer to the Cuomo doorstep.

Grandeau calls the Times expose on the life and death of the Moreland Commssion ''the most important piece of writing on corruption in Albany since I've been here, because it pulls back the curtain on how the Moreland Commission really worked. It's how the ethics commission works, too. I can only hope that Preet Bharara shows us even more, and lays it all out for us.''

Tactically, whether by design, coincidence or an act of the gods, Preet Bharara has outmaneuvered Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo has no place to hide and is entirely on the defensive over his and his administration's conduct in the Moreland business. Thanks to the Times expose, the nearly complete story is out there, and so is the governor's eyeopening defense, which reads like a legal strategy.

The Times story notably includes, as Grandeau pointed out to me, extensive and exact quotes from delicate private conversations, the kind of quotes we are used to reading in federal indictments where a wire has been used.

Certainly Bharara could not have asked for better artillery to soften up the opposition before an assault. What seemed shocking and improbable a week ago now seems entirely possible: that Cuomo and his lackey could be in real trouble over Moreland Commission interference.

All eyes are on Preet to give us the next chapter.

flebrun@timesunion.com • 518-454-5453