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Fellow New York Democratic lawmakers on Monday did not buy Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s explanation of why he refused for months to release a real account of nursing home residents who died from the coronavirus.
Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose uncle died of COVID-19, said bluntly: “This is all BS” and a cover-up.
“They could have given us the information in May and June of last year. They chose not to, ”Kim said, hearing Cuomo accusing the DOJ’s investigation of delaying the release of the precise count of coronavirus deaths of nursing home residents.
Cuomo cited an exclusive August 26, 2020 article in The Post that broke the news of the Justice Department’s investigation into his administration’s nursing home admissions policy and death undercount, saying that Albany lawmakers should have been aware of the investigation based on that report.
Kim said lawmakers could have passed laws to strengthen accountability and accountability in nursing homes to save lives had they had the information sooner.
Kim also said Cuomo’s comments on Monday did not align with what top aide Melissa DeRosa told her and other lawmakers in a private meeting last week when she said former President Donald Trump made the issue “political football” and claimed it as an excuse to withhold data from nursing homes. The Post first reported his explosive comments after obtaining an audio recording of the meeting.
“And basically we froze,” DeRosa said.
“She spoke of the potential for the information to be used against them. DeRosa must be responsible for what she said, ”Kim insisted.
“She got us all involved in the cover-up.
DeRosa released a statement Friday, mirroring what the governor said on Monday that the administration was dealing with federal probors before releasing more detailed data on nursing homes to state lawmakers and public data.
Meanwhile, State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx) took issue with Cuomo’s claim that his team informed lawmakers that they would delay the release of data on nursing home deaths due to of the federal investigation.
“No, @NYGovCuomo, you didn’t tell the entire Senate or Assembly that there was a DOJ investigation because you didn’t share nursing home numbers,” Biaggi said in a tweet.
“I discovered a DOJ investigation with the rest of NY in the @nypost story on Thursday night,” she said.
State Senator Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) claimed Cuomo was lying.
“If the governor had indeed informed the legislature months ago that his office was withholding the data it had on the total number of deaths in nursing homes, it would not have been necessary for them to have a call. with a group of lawmakers last week to brief them on this for the first time, ” she tweeted.
“The governor can claim (as he did) that they withheld the data because they believed it would be used against them by the DOJ (!). But to claim that they informed the legislature is more than a lie. If he had been honest in the first place, he might have had a cycle of bad news. But now?”
State Senator John Liu (D-Queens) also said the federal inquiry was no excuse for “months and months of delays” to “mislead” or “withhold information that the public deserve to know ”.
He said he would support legislation limiting the governor’s emergency powers due to Cuomo’s fumbling over the retirement home issue.
“The status quo cannot remain. There has to be a revocation of some of the governor’s emergency powers, ”Liu told Fox News Channel.
“For months and months we have been asking for this information from the executive branch, the governor’s office. This was information our constituents demanded from the state government.
Liu said he was particularly disturbed by the state attorney general’s damning report, Attorney General Letitia James, on nursing homes, released last month, which revealed that Cuomo’s health department had cut back. by 50% the number of COVID deaths of residents excluding those who died in hospitals.
Hours after the report, the Cuomo team began to be honest by releasing more precise data that increased the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths by nearly 4,000.
GOP Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt said Republicans were never told by Cuomo’s office of the DOJ’s investigation and the request for time to release nursing home data.
“People want the truth and the only way that can be provided is to conduct Justice Department and Attorney General investigations,” Ortt said.
On February 3, a state judge ruled that Cuomo had unlawfully withheld COVID-19 nursing home data at the Empire Center for Public Policy and ordered its release. The watchdog group filed a legal request for information and was blocked for six months before the judge ordered the administration to start publishing it.
Bill Hammond, of the Empire Center, said Cuomo’s hiding place before the DOJ’s investigation sat on true accounting of nursing home deaths doesn’t hold water.
“Cuomo and his administration were fighting the release of data before and after the DOJ investigation. It is not plausible that they cannot cooperate with the DOJ and provide information to lawmakers and the public, ”he said.
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