Legal experts are warning that the alleged underestimation of deaths in nursing homes by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, could reach the level of a crime.
Cuomo found himself at the center of a federal investigation into whether his government was trying to hide the true number of victims of the pandemic.
The New York Post reported earlier this month that Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide, told lawmakers that she withheld the figures for fear that they would be “used against us”.
ARCHIVE: Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during a news conference against the backdrop of medical supplies at the Jacob Javits Center, which will house a temporary hospital in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in New York.
(AP)
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, John B. Daukas, who served as the United States attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, wrote that DeRosa’s reported admissions that the Cuomo administration ” it was not merely negligent, but intentional and perhaps criminal. ”
Daukas said several federal laws could be enforced, noting that the Cuomo government is accusing him of making false statements to the federal government and of trying to prevent an investigation.
“Even though it cannot be proved that the Cuomo administration intentionally provided false information to Justice and the (Medicare and Medicaid Service Centers), New York’s deliberate failure to provide information can constitute a criminal offense – especially if the intention was to prevent a federal investigation – which, after all, is exactly what DeRosa said the government did, “wrote Daukas.
And on Saturday, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said that DeRosa’s admission to lawmakers – if true – constitutes a potential obstruction to the prosecution. According to federal statute, Jarrett noted, if a government official falsifies or hides evidence to prevent an investigation from being triggered (or acts out of fear that such an investigation might occur), that employee is still guilty under the obstruction law. ”
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The nursing home scandal was a major blow to the governor’s high favorability. At the beginning of the pandemic, the governor went on television to receive daily briefings that were paternal, almost philosophical and also strongly critical of the Trump administration. They became mandatory TV across the country, helped in part by their brother newscaster on CNN.
Despite the death toll in his state – more than 46,000 people in New York State died of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University – Cuomo’s popularity has soared. In October, Cuomo took an early victory lap by releasing a book entitled “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Pandemic COVID-19”.
But the issue of the nursing home has exploded on the political scene with two recent revelations. First, the state’s Democratic attorney general criticized the Cuomo administration for minimizing the death toll in nursing homes by excluding certain deaths from counting. Cuomo’s administration then revealed that at least 15,000 people living in long-term care institutions died of COVID-19, almost double the number that Cuomo had initially released.
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“The history of nursing homes has really exposed a little bit about the issues of their leadership style and the success of their leadership during COVID,” said Christina Greer, professor of political science at Fordham University. “The governor wrote a book praising his achievements and we don’t know if we are halfway out of the pandemic.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.