Governor Andrew Cuomo’s cover-up of deaths in nursing homes due to COVID-19 could lead to federal criminal charges, warned a former assistant attorney general.
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, John Daukas – who was acting attorney general for President Trump’s Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division – insisted that the multi-agency investigation was “serious, perhaps deserving federal criminal charges” .
Daukas said Cuomo’s executive order last March requiring New York nursing homes to admit hospitalized patients with a positive result for COVID-19 “has led to far more tragic and unnecessary deaths than those reported to the public.”
“And his government appears to have been involved in a cover-up designed to thwart the federal government’s oversight efforts,” Daukas wrote in the article published late Sunday.
“New York’s seemingly false statements about deaths in nursing homes deceived public health officials across the country at a time when they were trying to develop strategies to combat a deadly pandemic,” he wrote.
Worse, he pointed to the Post’s report on how Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, admitted that the true death toll was being hidden for fear that the numbers would be “used against us” by prosecutors.
“In. DeRosa’s reported admissions indicate that the Cuomo government’s conduct was not only negligent, but intentional and perhaps criminal,” Daukas wrote.
“Numerous federal criminal statutes can be applied,” he warned.
“It is a crime to make false statements to the federal government. It is also a crime to hide information and obstruct government investigations.
“New York may have been involved in a conspiracy to defraud the United States and its agencies and possibly obstruct justice, among other crimes,” he emphasized.
“Even though it cannot be proved that the Cuomo government intentionally provided false information to the Justice and [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services], New York’s intentional failure to provide information may in itself constitute a criminal offense – particularly if the intention was to thwart a federal investigation – which, after all, is exactly what DeRosa said the government did, ”he wrote.