Former Governor George Pataki dumped Governor Andrew Cuomo, calling the scandal “cover-up” of reports of deaths in nursing homes COVID-19 “one of the worst things I have ever seen in the state government”.
During an interview on AM 570 WMCA, Pataki called Cuomo’s nursing home policies and actions “inhuman”, “reprehensible”, “outrageous”, “despicable” and “beyond limits”.
He called for a criminal investigation by the Biden Department of Justice, Attorney General Letitia James and an independent investigation conducted by the state legislature.
“This is one of the worst things I have seen in the New York state government, and I have been following this for a long time,” said Pataki of covering up death in the nursing home.
He also said that the Legislature should restrict Cuomo’s emergency powers, which would “speed up” the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination and end Albany’s “micromanagement”.
“You will not let people worry about being fined a million dollars or losing their license if you give someone a category 2CW vaccine instead of category 2AB. This is stupid micromanagement, ”he said.
There is growing support among Democrats who control the state assembly and the Senate to take Cuomo out of the powers he was granted last year to respond quickly to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that followed. These powers expire on April 30.
Pataki said that the Cuomo team and its health department only started confessing to deaths in nursing homes after state attorney general Letitia James released a blatant report that found that they deceived the public by underreporting coronavirus deaths among residents of the facilities – all excluding people who died after being transported to hospitals.
A state judge also recently ordered Cuomo to release more complete data on deaths in nursing homes after determining that his administration illegally withheld information for months from the Empire Center for Public Policy. The watchdog group filed a legal request for the figures.
“We know that they were hiding the death toll. It’s just despicable, ”said Pataki.
Last May, Pataki criticized the state Department of Health directive that orders nursing homes to admit or readmit patients with recovering coronaviruses who were discharged from hospitals during the height of the pandemic.
Critics noted that the policy contributed to the spread of the killer virus in facilities that house frail elderly people.
“In just a few weeks, we were informed that there were just over 8,000 deaths. We are now informed that the number is over 13,000, ”said Pataki on Friday.
Pataki also described Cuomo’s decision to publish a book on his leadership lessons in COVID-19 as just a few months after the pandemic began as selfish.
“Writing a book about how great your leadership was when, in fact, you know you are covering up thousands of deaths … Then, continuing this riddle about the tremendous response there was. It is incomprehensible, ”said the former Republican governor.
Pataki, who led the state after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said: “I was not there two months after the September 11 attack waving the flag and saying that I did an excellent job.
“It wasn’t about me. It was about everyone who responded – the firefighters, the construction workers, the first respondents, the people of New York. “
Pataki also tore up comments by Cuomo’s chief aide, Melissa DeRosa, at a private meeting with state lawmakers on Wednesday about the refusal to release a full death count in nursing homes due to an ongoing federal inquiry.
The damning numbers would be “used against us” by the Trump Department of Justice, she said. The Post first reported DeRosa’s explanation after obtaining an audio tape from Zoom’s chat.
Pataki called his comments “a cover-up to prevent a possible criminal investigation. It certainly smells like obstruction of justice. “
He was also criticized for DeRosa’s apologies to Democrats, who complained that the death block at the nursing home left them vulnerable to criticism from Republican opponents.
“The fact that the government apologized to Democratic politicians for its inconvenience, but never apologized to the people or families of those who died – that is inhumane,” said Pataki, who ruled from 1995-2006.
In a statement on Friday morning, DeRosa stated that in his comments: “I was explaining that when we received the DOJ inquiry, we needed to temporarily void the Legislature’s request to deal with the federal request first.”
In response to Pataki, the governor’s office referred the Post to a statement issued by DeRosa on Friday.
“I was explaining that when we received the DOJ inquiry, we needed to temporarily cancel the request from the Legislature [for nursing home death data] to handle the federal order first. We informed the houses of that at the time, ”said DeRosa.
“We were comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ, so we had to focus our resources immediately on the second wave and the launch of the vaccine. As I said in a liaison with lawmakers, we could not respond to your request as quickly as anyone would like.
“But we are committed to being better partners in the future, as we share the same goal of keeping New Yorkers as healthy as possible during the pandemic.”