WASHINGTON – US Attorney General Merrick Garland promised on Monday that the Justice Department will seek any evidence of fraud in a federal investigation that he will soon be able to supervise on how Governor Andrew M. Cuomo deals with deaths in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
“With all of these investigations, the Justice Department is open to evidence of fraud, false statements and violations of the law,” said Garland during his Senate confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate. “They usually start at the relevant US attorney’s office.”
The FBI and the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York are investigating the Cuomo administration and its nursing home policies, sources confirmed to the Times Union.
An investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James recently found that the Cuomo administration underestimated deaths in nursing homes by up to 50 percent because many of the deaths involved dying residents and were transferred to a hospital. The governor’s office was later attacked after it was revealed that Governor Melissa DeRosa’s secretary may have been slow to read the nursing home data requested by the state legislature because the government was suspicious of how that information would be used against Cuomo’s team in the federal inquiry.
Almost a year ago, the Cuomo administration issued a directive that pushed COVID-19-positive nursing home residents from hospitals back to facilities to free up space in what their task force feared were overcrowded hospitals. Cuomo said his order was in line with federal guidance, a statement that has been refuted by the Trump administration’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Now, in the face of a torrent of resignations, an impeachment commission and the repeal of his executive powers, Cuomo has not apologized for the way his team handled deaths in nursing homes and reportedly threatened a Democratic lawmaker who criticized him.
Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, said on Monday that Congress “will obviously review this incident and others” to learn the lessons of the pandemic.
“One of the most solemn duties of leadership during a crisis is to give people the best information available so they can make informed decisions for themselves and their loved ones,” added Tonko. “I support the authorities in New York State and the US Department of Justice who are working to review this incident and to ensure accountability and I am confident that they are up to the task. “
Last week, the Republican US sens. Ted Cruz from Texas, Josh Hawley from Missouri, Chuck Grassley from Iowa, Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, John Cornyn from Texas, Mike Lee from Utah, Tom Cotton from Arkansas, Thom Tillis from North Carolina and Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee wrote to Senate Judiciary President Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Asking him to start an investigation in Congress on the actions of the Cuomo government. The separate investigations by the US Attorney General’s office and the FBI will largely take place in secret. Closed doors.
“The American people deserve to know the extent to which Governor Cuomo and his senior team violated the civil rights of the elderly in New York, lied to the Justice Department about their actions and violated federal civil and criminal laws in the process,” senators wrote. “In addition, hearings will allow this committee to ensure that the Department of Justice has all the tools and resources necessary to investigate and prosecute as necessary this tragedy and the subsequent cover-up.”
So far, most Democrats in Congress have shown no interest in investigating the deaths of Cuomo and in nursing homes in New York, preferring to leave that job to the Department of Justice. Durbin has given no indication that he will start an investigation on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In the House, Republicans on the Forms and Means Committee, led by US Representative Tom Reed, R-Corning, also pushed for an investigation by that committee. An amendment to the coronavirus relief bill that Reed proposed that would require governors to certify that the nursing home data was accurate was rejected by Democrats in a party vote.
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, DN.Y., said on Friday that she would support hearings at the Senate Aging Committee on conditions in nursing homes across the country.
“One of the things I hope we can do is really do a complete overhaul, because older Americans in nursing homes across the country have suffered disproportionately,” she said. “When COVID entered these nursing homes and assisted living facilities, it spread like wildfire and many of our older Americans have borne the brunt of it. So I hope we can have hearings on the broader issue, because this is not an isolated thing to New York only. “