Amid reports of a federal investigation into how New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo dealt with deaths in COVID-19 nursing homes, Democrats from the New York General Assembly and Senate began to discuss the possibility of removing Cuomo from the broad executive powers granted to him last March to oversee the state’s COVID-19 response efforts.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating Cuomo’s task force COVID-19 to determine whether the state purposely manipulated data on deaths in nursing homes, two unidentified people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation.
Recently, the Cuomo administration was found to underreport 40 percent the number of COVID-19 patients placed by hospitals in nursing homes.
His administration also underestimated the number of deaths in nursing homes by almost 43 percent, effectively representing thousands of previously unreported events.
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On Tuesday, New York Democratic Assembly member Ron Kim and eight other New York Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter asking other Assembly members to support a proposal to remove Cuomo from his pandemic-related executive powers, reports CNN .
The letter accused Cuomo of “criminal” obstruction of justice after Cuomo’s chief aide, Melissa DeRosa, admitted in a virtual private meeting with state lawmakers last week that the state had not released its total COVID-19 death count of residents nursing homes. August for fear that then President Donald Trump would use the information to start a Department of Justice investigation against Cuomo.
In a transcript of DeRosa’s comments from the private meeting, she said: “[Trump] begins to tweet that we kill everyone in nursing homes. He starts to go after [New Jersey Governor Phil] Murphy, start chasing [California Governor Gavin] Newsom, start chasing [Michigan Governor] Gretchen Whitmer. He instructs the Department of Justice to do an investigation on us. “
“And basically, we froze,” continued DeRosa, “because we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what [numbers] we were going to give it to the Justice Department or what we give you … it was going to be used against us. We were not sure if there would be an investigation. “
The letter from Democratic state assembly members followed a February 12 statement issued by 14 New York state Democratic senators, who also proposed that Cuomo be removed from his executive powers related to the pandemic.
“It is clear that the expanded emergency powers for the governor are no longer appropriate,” the statement said. “Without exception, the New York State Constitution requires the legislature to govern as a co-equal branch of government.”
Signatories to the declaration noted that, although Cuomo’s authority to issue guidelines expires on April 30, they suggested that his fellow senators revoke Cuomo’s powers “as soon as possible.”
Last week, New York Department of Health records revealed that 9,056 patients recovering from COVID-19 were placed in nursing homes – the department had previously reported only 6,327. At the same time, the Cuomo administration also revealed that the number of COVID-19 deaths among long-term residents in the state was more than 15,000, almost double the 8,500 previously cited by state officials, according to the Associated Press.
After the Assembly, member Kim publicly criticized the way Cuomo dealt with deaths in nursing homes in The New York Post, Kim claimed that Cuomo called his home and threatened to destroy his career if he did not issue a statement supporting his handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes.
Kim, whose uncle died in a nursing home in 2020 due to an alleged case of COVID-19, told the publication: “There is no way to undo it here. They have blood on their hands. We are talking about their performance record for the past 10 months. . “
On Wednesday morning, Cuomo’s senior adviser, Rich Azzopardi, said in a statement: “Kim’s claim that the governor said he would ‘destroy him’ is false.”
Responding to complaints about how his government handled data from the COVID-19 nursing home, Cuomo told reporters, “In retrospect, should we have given more priority to handling requests for information? In my opinion, yes. And that’s what created the void. I just want to make sure people know that these are the facts: everything that could have been done has been done. “
Newsweek contacted Cuomo’s office for comment.