Multiple calls for a criminal investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo as well as calls for his resignation have arisen following a bombshell report in which one of his top aides admitted in a conference call to Democratic lawmakers that the administration hid information on COVID nursing home deaths from federal investigators.
In August, the Department of Justice announced that they had requested information from New York regarding pandemic-related orders that might have led to the deaths of thousands of seniors in nursing homes. The New York Democrat consistently painted the investigation as politically motivated.
But a stunning confession from Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, appears to indicate Cuomo’s administration knew the feds were going to find questionable, if not criminal, activity.
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The New York Post first reported that DeRosa told leading Empire State Democrats that the administration feared the data could “be used against us” by the Justice Department.
After former President Trump directed “the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us,” the Cuomo aide said, “basically we froze. We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” DeRosa said.
Background on the Scandal
Cuomo’s nursing home scandal, covered on these pages for months, began to finally unravel in the media two weeks ago.
The New York Times reported that Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, accused Cuomo and his administration, particularly officials at the State Health Department, of undercounting COVID deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%. State officials had originally given a figure of about 8,677.
James’s report meant that number is actually closer to over 13,000 people who died as a result of the pandemic infiltrating nursing homes. WWNY News reports that number was actually well over 15,000 seniors who died in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s executive order.
Cuomo famously issued an executive order in March forcing nursing homes to take on patients who had tested positive for coronavirus. The order prohibited facilities from requiring incoming patients “to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission,” and may have contributed to the well over 15,000 deaths in New York.
Cuomo refused to reverse the directive for over six weeks while senior citizens succumbed to the virus. At the same time, he denied ever having issued the order.
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) October 14, 2020
Complicating matters were obvious signs that the Cuomo administration was stonewalling actual data related to the nursing home deaths associated with COVID.
The CDC unfortunately made it optional for nursing homes to report COVID deaths in March, April and early May, when NY's pandemic was at its worst.
But some homes did the right thing — and often gave numbers strikingly higher than reported by NYS DOH. https://t.co/6WSYZno25L pic.twitter.com/zIQOPExDLH
— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) September 8, 2020
The 76-page report released by James references “a survey of nursing homes” that “found consistent discrepancies between deaths reported to the attorney general’s investigators and those officially released by the Health Department.” One facility had almost four times as many deaths than were reported. “In one instance, an unnamed facility reported 11 confirmed and presumed deaths to the Health Department as happening on-site through early August,” the New York Times wrote, adding, “The attorney general’s survey of that same facility, however, found 40 deaths, including 27 at the home and 13 in hospitals.”
Your mistakes cost us the lives of our family members, @NYGovCuomo. But rest assured, we, the People will be strong in our fight for answers and accountability. And the more you try to silence us, the louder our voices will become. https://t.co/4d7PyCFCkr
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) January 4, 2021
Cuomo recently claimed it didn’t matter that people died in a nursing home in-part because of his own directive. “Who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died,” he said.
Until recently Joe Biden was seriously considering Andrew Cuomo as his Attorney General, even after the information on his nursing home scandals was already available.
Scandal Leads to Calls For Cuomo to Resign
Perhaps the most startling aspect of the latest New York Post report is how the Democratic lawmakers reacted to DeRosa’s admission. Well, that and the fact that DeRosa apologized for the administration’s behavior, though her apology was not to the thousands of grieving families who lost parents or grandparents in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s actions, mind you. Rather the apology was fellow Democrats for the “political inconvenience” caused by the nursing home scandal being. “We do apologize,” DeRosa said. “I do understand the position that you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intention to put you in that political position with the Republicans.”
Speaking of whom, Republican lawmakers are calling for the governor’s head. New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said the evidence points to a “stunning and criminal abuse of power. I have said from the beginning that this is more than a nursing home scandal, this is a massive corruption and cover-up scandal at the highest level of New York State government.” The evidence,” she added, “points to a “stunning and criminal abuse of power. I have said from the beginning that this is more than a nursing home scandal, this is a massive corruption and cover-up scandal at the highest level of New York State government.”
NYGOP Chairman Nick Langworthy called for an investigation and discussions into possible impeachment, adding, “The second most powerful person in state government and top aide to Governor Cuomo admitted on video to the premeditated and willful violation of state laws and what clearly amounts to federal obstruction of justice. Andrew Cuomo has abused his power and destroyed the trust placed in the office of governor. Prosecution and impeachment discussions must begin right away.”
Calls for Cuomo’s impeachment have been circulating since the summer. Sen. Rand Paul was one leading voice on the matter. “I think Gov. Cuomo should be impeached … for the disastrous decision he made to send patients with coronavirus back to nursing homes,” Paul declared. “Virtually half his people who died were in nursing homes,” he added.
ICYMI today I joined @AmericaNewsroom to talk about the COVID response. Cuomo's response is NOT to be emulated. pic.twitter.com/hSuoztgQSb
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2020
Some Democrats Are Also Out for Cuomo’s Head
Jumaane Williams, the Democrat Public Advocate for New York City, tweeted, “To continual defenders of @NYGovCuomo, how is this ok? How is it not #Trump like?”
“And when FORCED into admission, the most you get is a sorry we got caught … and not even directly from him or to the families,” Williams added. “All while asking NYers to trust your decisions.”
Democrat Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou also chimed in, calling the actions of the Cuomo administration “criminal.”
How many NYS Legislators will finally realize I’ve been right all along and join me in calling for @NYGovCuomo and most of his crime family of an administration to resign? Enough is enough.
https://t.co/SdObeP89DF— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) February 12, 2021
Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, one of the few voices to continually hound Cuomo over the nursing home scandal for months on end, said “people should go to jail” over the cover-up. “This is the biggest bombshell we have had so far,” said Dean, whose in-laws were victims of COVID-19, and in whom nursing homes in New York played a part last year. “We had a trickling in of the numbers. We knew the numbers were much bigger than the governor was admitting. Over 15,000 residents died from getting COVID in their nursing homes … and now the biggest bombshell coming from the New York Post that his secretary, Melissa DeRosa admitted that they covered it all up.”
Dean thanked whoever leaked the DeRosa conference call to the New York Post. Without it, a tacit admission of a crime and cover-up may have never seen the light.
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
