A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist announced plans to sue Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer for releasing coronavirus data in nursing homes.
Longtime reporter Charlie LeDuff announced on Twitter that he and Mackinac Center, a Michigan-based free market think tank, are “preparing a lawsuit” against the Democratic governor.
LeDuff – who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his work with the New York Times – said Whitmer “refuses to deliver data on COVID deaths and accurate numbers of nursing homes to the public.”
“All the way to the Supreme Court, madam,” LeDuff wrote in the tweet before thanking the Mackinac Center for taking over his case in court.
Whitmer’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request to comment on LeDuff’s planned process.
“The public has a right to know. Above all, the public has a need to know. We closed the entire economy, interrupted the lives of our children, all in the name of protecting the most vulnerable. We now know that this was the institutionalized elderly. If we couldn’t protect them, at least we deserve an explanation from the governor, “LeDuff told Fox News in an email on Monday.
“If there is anything more than that, say gross incompetence or gross negligence or gross press conferences designed to cover the facts, she needs to answer for that. As I always said, the power is in the people, not the political parties,” he added. .
Whitmer was recently criticized for dealing with nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.
Several Republican state lawmakers recently called for a “thorough investigation” of Whitmer’s actions in two letters to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and acting US Attorney General Monty Wilkinson.
MICHIGAN GOV. WHITMER FACES CALLED FOR INVESTIGATION OF DEATHS IN NURSING CASES CORONAVIRUS
Lawmakers pointed to “discrepancies” in data on deaths and cases “in the state’s long-term institutions.”
“Now we come to our knowledge that these reporting errors were probably not resolved,” the Republicans accused. They added that “Whitmer’s regional center policy places patients with and without COVID-19 in the same facility” and the decision to do so “may have exacerbated the death toll at these facilities”.
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Increasing attention to treating Michigan health care facilities during the pandemic comes as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo faces impeachment requests because of his government’s withholding data on the deaths of nursing home residents .
Cuomo also faces another scandal after two of his former aides, Charlotte Bennett and Lindsey Boylan, accused him of sexual harassment.