- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was involved in four major scandals in the early months of 2021.
- The most recent: It was reported on Wednesday that Cuomo provided priority testing of COVID-19 for his family.
- The scandals tarnished Cuomo’s image as a political star in the early days of the pandemic.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has had a bad year – and successes keep coming.
Cuomo – one of the few politicians who offered an appearance of tranquility during the early days of the pandemic – is now seeing his political career and image deteriorate rapidly.
In the midst of a series of sexual assault charges, a federal investigation into the underestimation of deaths in the COVID-19 nursing home by his administration and reports of a structurally unsafe bridge named after his father, Cuomo now faces a fourth major controversy. .
The third-term governor is accused of providing special access to state-administered coronavirus tests for his own family members and other key figures while the pandemic hit New York City early last year.
According to The Washington Post, the Cuomo administration dispatched a top physician and other state health officials to the homes of his family, including Brother Chris Cuomo’s home in Hamptons. The CNN anchor was diagnosed with COVID-19 last March.
The accusations of corruption in the coronavirus test come along with the growing resignations, possible impeachment and layoffs of key officials in his government – all since the beginning of March.
Cuomo was subjected to intense scrutiny earlier this year amid reports that his advisers pressured state officials to underestimate the death toll in nursing homes in a July report. The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation to see if the governor and his advisers provided false numbers. And The New York Times reported last week that federal investigators subpoenaed Cuomo’s office for documents relating to the data.
Then came the allegations of sexual harassment, inappropriate touching and cultivation of a toxic work environment. Since his first accuser appeared, eight more women have made accusations against Cuomo, including three former governor aides and two journalists.
Then, two weeks ago, a Times Union report found that the Mario Cuomo bridge has “structural security” problems that could lead to its collapse that the state has known for years.
Cuomo has rejected calls for resignation, even when they come from top New York lawmakers, including his fellow Democrats, saying this would be “anti-Democratic”.
The recent wave of events represents a dramatic change in Cuomo’s status last year, when many praised his way of dealing with the pandemic and his daily press conferences, especially in contrast to those of former President Donald Trump.
Cuomo even published a book in October called “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Pandemic COVID-19”, praising his own response to the coronavirus and saying, “We saw how the virus is confronted and defeated.”
But his self-aggrandizement was premature.
New York would not have its peak number of daily cases for another three months, during the third and worst increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country, although deaths in the state never again reached the April 2020 highs.
And as soon as the third wave started to subside in February, the tide started to turn towards Cuomo. He hasn’t come back since.