By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News -
After serious questions emerged about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s management of nursing homes during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, the FBI and U.S. Attorney are investigating, reported local news outlet The Albany Times-Union.
According to a source with knowledge of the matter, the fledgling probe is focused on top members of Cuomo’s coronavirus task force. The task force included attorney Linda Lacewell, Commissioner Howard Zucker, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Beth Garvey, counsel to the governor.
In January 2021, Attorney General Letitia James released a report highly critical of Cuomo’s nursing home policy at the beginning of the pandemic, which had directed assisted living facilities to accept released hospital patients who were still testing positive for the coronavirus.
The report suggested that the practice may have led to thousands of new infections and deaths at nursing homes throughout New York State.
Last week, details of a closed-door meeting between DeRosa and top New York Democrats in the state legislature revealed that Cuomo’s administration had intentionally withheld information about nursing home infections and death from the Justice department and lawmakers.
In statements that were leaked to the media, DeRosa explained that the Cuomo administration did not respond to inquiries from the Justice Department about the nursing home deaths because they were sent by attorney Jeffrey Clark.
Clark was described by DeRosa as a “political hack” whose agenda was set by former President Trump, and the Cuomo administration feared they would be prosecuted if they were forthcoming about nursing home data.
“Basically, we froze because then 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 [Democratic lawmakers] and what we start saying was going to be used against us and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” DeRosa said in the private meeting.
The bombshell revelations united Republican and Democratic lawmakers in horror, as politicians from both sides of the aisle blasted Cuomo’s administration.
State Sen. Julia Salazar (D) tweeted, “The Governor keeps trying to evade responsibility for his misjudgment (an understatement) in concealing the number of nursing home deaths by claiming that he’d informed the legislature.”
State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D) tweeted, “No, @NYGovCuomo, you did not tell the *entire* Senate or Assembly that there was a DOJ investigation, as the reason why you didn’t share the nursing home numbers.”
In a press conference earlier this week, Cuomo decided not to apologize for the obfuscation around nursing home deaths, instead saying he’d created a “void.”
“Apologize? Look, I have said repeatedly, we made a mistake in creating the void,” he said. “When we didn’t provide information it allowed [the] press, people, cynics, politicians to fill the void. When you don’t correct this information you allow it to continue and we created the void.”
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