30 September 2024: Judges Toss Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Cuomo

Judges tosses wrongful death suit against Cuomo over order requiring COVID patients into nursing homes

A New York state district judge dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit against Andrew M. Cuomo related to his deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Here's the introduction to the report:

A wrongful death lawsuit against Andrew Cuomo over a state directive that forced nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients was tossed by a judge Monday – with the ex-governor’s camp claiming “justice has prevailed.”

Eastern District of New York Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall granted a motion to dismiss the suit that was brought against Cuomo and other top aides in 2022 by a man whose father contracted the deadly disease in a Brooklyn nursing home and died.

Daniel Arbeeny, of Brooklyn, argued in the suit that his father’s death was caused by a 2020 state health department order that required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients.

Loved ones of others who died in nursing homes during the pandemic also joined the lawsuit, alleging the same thing.

The judge gave no justification for their decision. The article also indicates no decision has been made for whether the case will be dismissed with prejudice, which would prevent the plaintiffs from refiling their case.

In any case, Daniel Arbeeny indicated he and the plaintiffs would appeal the judge's decision, which means more very slow moving legal actions lie ahead.

This entry was added to the timeline on 13 October 2024.

29 September 2024: SNL Jabs at Cuomo Political Ambitions

Saturday Night Live takes jab at Cuomo's Political Ambitions

Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" referenced Andrew M. Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals in its "Weekend Update" segment. Here's the relevant clip:

This clip may be an early sign of what will become a recurring pattern whenever Cuomo makes moves toward pursuing elected positions. For their part, SNL's writers haven't said much about Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals since 2021.

Here's a link to the full segment posted on YouTube. The clip we featured runs from the 1:48 to the 2:21 minute mark of the segment.

This entry was added to the timeline on 13 October 2024.

10 September 2024: Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Grilled on COVID-19 Nursing Home Policies

Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo grilled on COVID-19 nursing home policies

Andrew M. Cuomo gave public testimony under oath before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee. Here's the introduction to this report:

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was grilled during his public testimony before Congress on Tuesday, defending his administration's nursing home policies during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hearing, before the Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, saw a defensive Cuomo who largely stood by his decision-making during the pandemic -- including a March 2020 directive to readmit COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes -- and blamed the outsized death toll on what he described as former president Donald Trump's lack of leadership.

Cuomo previously testified before the subcommittee during a closed-door hearing in June. Transcripts from that interview, as well as with high-ranking officials during Cuomo's administration, were released Tuesday morning ahead of the public hearing.

While Cuomo attempted to deflect blame to former President Donald Trump in his testimony, the release of transcripts of testimony under oath to the subcommittee provided by his former aides paint a different picture of the governor and his top political staff in both signing off on the deadly 25 March 2020 directive and covering up the full extent of nursing home deaths that resulted.

9 September 2024: Aides: Cuomo 'Edited' Report Undercounting Nursing Home Deaths, 'Absolutely' Signed Off Deadly Directive

Cuomo aides knew his nursing home mandate would be ‘great debacle,’ helped gov ‘edit’ report that deflated deaths, House COVID panel finds

This report covers a number of allegations raised by several of former New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's former staff members regarding actions Cuomo and other members of his staff took to conceal the disastrous results of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive in official state reports. Here's a summary of the two biggest blockbusters from the introduction to this article:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo allegedly himself “edited” a state report that deflated New York’s COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes — which his top aides pressured health officials into releasing, despite knowing the issue would turn into a “great debacle,” according to the stunning results of an investigation by a US House committee.

Cuomo’s office “absolutely” signed off on the disastrous directive early in the pandemic forcing coronavirus patients back into nursing homes — leading to as many as 9,000 excess COVID deaths — the final congressional report and witness testimonies exclusively obtained by The Post show.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic conducted the probe and majority staff released the findings ahead of a public hearing with the 66-year-old ex-governor on Tuesday.

Cuomo had disputed the allegation he had signed off on the deadly 25 March 2020 directive while testifying under oath behind closed doors to the U.S. House subcommittee probing the matter in June 2024. That testimony was contradicted by another state official's testimony:

Cuomo and DeRosa told the House COVID subcommittee the order had been drafted by a “midlevel” New York Department of Health staff member based on guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

The order apparently “surprised” Cuomo and DeRosa when both were asked about it at an April 20, 2020, press conference. It was taken down from the state health department website nine days later but remained operable for another month.

“I do not recall reviewing,” Cuomo testified. “I don’t recall seeing it.”

But Bradley Hutton, former deputy health commissioner, told the House committee that the governor’s office had “absolutely” signed off on the order.

Another state official, Cuomo's Director of Operations Jim Malatras, testified to the House subcommittee about the coverup of the full extent of nursing home deaths that resulted from the implementation of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

According to Cuomo’s then-director of operations, Dr. Jim Malatras, who served as a member of the governor’s COVID task force, top aide Melissa DeRosa “laid out the points that she wanted to have touched upon in the report.”

“The report that I was editing had the total number of fatalities in all the charts until Ms. DeRosa intervened,” Malatras testified to the subcommittee.

“She was constantly editing it, Mr. Cuomo was editing it,” Malatras said in his testimony.

“It was largely around language,” he added, saying the governor’s aides would push to “refashion those sentences to be more less causal, less definitive, and work back in some of the language that DOH had originally.”

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 September 2024.

3 September 2024: Cuomo to Give Public Testimony on COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals to Congress

Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo to testify before House COVID panel

On 11 June 2024, former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo testified under oath to a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives about his COVID nursing home deaths scandals. That testimony took place behind closed doors, where only a portion of his transcribed testimony has been made public.

On 10 September 2024, Cuomo will go back before the House subcommittee to give public testimony under oath. Here's how that news was reported by the New York Post:

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is set to testify next week before a House committee investigating his administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic — including an infamous mandate that forced infected patients into nursing homes.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic announced Tuesday that it was preparing to question the ex-New York governor on Sept. 10 about the “unscientific guidance” that led to the deaths of thousands of senior citizens.

The article goes on to recap much of the Post's previous coverage of the ongoing story, scandals, and the Cuomo administration's attempted cover-up of the excess deaths that resulted from his deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

25 July 2024: NY State Comptroller Calls for Independent Commission to Probe Cuomo COVID Policies after Hochul Commission Whitewash

DiNapoli Op-Ed in Times Union: NY Needs an Independent Commission to Review State's COVID Response

If you needed evidence the Hochul Commission report on the leadership performance of state officials from former governor Andrew M. Cuomo on down was a whitewash, you got it today with an op-ed and official statement by NY State Comptroller Thomas Napoli.

The following excerpt gets straight to the deficiencies of the audit's findings:

An independent report by the Olson Group, prepared under contract with New York state, was expected to be an objective assessment of the state’s response to the crisis. Sorry to say, the Olson report failed to provide the rigorous, fact-based examination New York deserved, nor does it provide a roadmap for future improvement.

For the report to have been credible, it was imperative for its analysis to be accurate and complete. The Olson report often relied on flawed or unvalidated data, and at times data was interpreted incorrectly, resulting in erroneous conclusions.

One of the most glaring examples relates to nursing home deaths. The report cites figures based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data, stating, “New York’s poor performance, with a rate of 70.9 deaths per 1,000 nursing home residents, ranked it in the bottom third of all states.” The reality is far more grim. It is well known the CMS data undercounted the COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, as facilities’ reporting of COVID deaths was optional up to the week ending May 24, 2020 – a period that accounted for more than 75% of such deaths in New York. As a result, CMS reported our state had 5,974 nursing home deaths as of the last week of 2020. However, the state Department of Health’s data, which the Olson Group should have had access to, showed that the actual number of deaths for that time frame was closer to 11,350. Based on this more accurate data, New York’s nursing home death rate was nearly double at 135 per 1,000 residents, ranking us among the very worst states.

The report’s reliance on data known to be incomplete, as well as the misinterpretation and misreporting of data, is a serious shortcoming. Certain sources often lacked context, and cited information not included or contradicted by other sources. The Olson Group itself acknowledged the limited value of testimonial evidence, yet it leans on personal opinions from anonymous sources of unknown authority (such as a “Town Hall participant”). Rather than rigorous benchmarking or metrics, or evaluation against best practices, the report relies on testimonial evidence – even when substantive or authoritative documentation was available. The result, in many cases, is unsupported conclusions.

To overcome the whitewashed deficiencies of the Hochul Commission's report, DiNapoli proposes a more serious review of the actions taken by state officials during the coronavirus pandemic:

It's time for full consideration of proposed state legislation to establish an independent commission, with subpoena power, to provide the comprehensive accounting New Yorkers deserve.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024.

21 June 2024: Hochul’s Pandemic Study Is a $4.3 Million Flop

Hochul’s Pandemic Study Is a $4.3 Million Flop

The report of a commission established by replacement NY governor Kathy Hochul to probe the effectiveness of policies implemented by former governor Andrew M. Cuomo and state officials who served under him is being slammed as a whitewash by the Empire Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy think tank in New York.

One of those policies is Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, which forced nursing homes to admit patients known to have COVID infections into their facilities, where the highly contagious disease could spread like "fire through dry grass" among the portion of the state's population most vulnerable to a fatal outcome from exposure to it.

The Empire Center's Bill Hammond identifies multiple deficiencies in the report compiled by the Olson Group, which had been hired by Hochul to perform the audit. Here's an overview from the introduction of his analysis:

The newly released study of New York’s coronavirus pandemic response falls far short of what Governor Hochul promised – and the state urgently needs – in the aftermath of its worst natural disaster in modern history.

Hochul had commissioned a $4.3 million after-action review of the crisis, saying she wanted it to cover “the good, the bad and the ugly” and bolster the state’s preparedness for future outbreaks.

Yet the 262-page report from the Olson Group, a Virginia-based consulting firm, turns out to be thinly researched, poorly argued, ill-informed, sloppily presented and marred by obvious errors.

Although many of its findings ring true, it glosses over or ignores some of the state’s most questionable actions – such as ordering thousands of Covid-positive patients into nursing homes.

It looks especially weak in comparison to a similar review prepared for the state of New Jersey, which 648 pages longer – and far more detailed, authoritative and clearly written.

Hochul should declare the Olson Group’s work unacceptable, demand a refund and launch a real after-action review – by joining with Legislature to establish an independent pandemic response commission.

In this next excerpt, Hammond focuses on problems the Hochul Commission had in addressing Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive:

Another weak point is the report’s analysis of the much-debated March 25, 2020, order mandating nursing homes to admit Covid-positive patients being discharged from hospitals.

The report gives a garbled, incomplete account of the events surrounding the order and comes to a generally supportive conclusion:

The State is required by virtue of the applicable federal standards to have planning and processes in place to execute medical surge strategies to preserve the capacity to provide life-saving clinical care. It is also obligated to ensure that people are not discriminated against due to their health conditions. The policy to admit or return COVID-19 patients to nursing homes following hospital admission was an attempt to accomplish both standard public health disaster practices.

That analysis ignores key considerations:

• The policy was based on exaggerated projections of hospital crowding that never came to pass.
• Alternative sites were available, such as the temporary hospital at the Javits Convention Center, but they went largely unused.
• Nursing homes received no warning before the March 25 mandate was issued.
• Officials failed to emphasize the need for precautions in handling the admissions – or that facilities had the option of turning them down.
• The policy applied statewide even though the crisis was concentrated in New York City.
• The policy remained in place until early May even though hospital demand peaked in mid-April.

These are the type of details that a proper after-action review should itemize – not to shame past officials for mistakes, but to help future officials avoid repeating them.

It's quite possible Hochul's commission produced the report New York's state officials and she wanted them to produce. Unfortunately, it's not the report they really needed them to produce, which at $4.3 million, represents a costly flop that still needs to be cleaned up.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024.

13 July 2024: Federal Judge Dismisses Retaliation Claim Against Cuomo by Alleged Sexual Harassment Victim

Federal judge dismisses retaliation claims against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

The legal case of State Trooper #1 against former NY Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and his senior aides Melissa DeRosa and Rich Azzopardi had a setback in that one of the female trooper's claims that Cuomo retaliated against her were dismissed by a federal judge hearing the case.

However, as you'll see in the excerpt, the basis of that dismissal relies on a technicality connected to when she served on his protective detail. There no dispute over whether the retaliatory action happened, but rather, whether she was serving on his protective detail when the action taken against her occurred:

A federal judge has dismissed a New York State Trooper's claim of retaliation against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In the ruling, the judge says the supposed action Cuomo took against the trooper happened after her employment contract had already ended.

The trooper sued the former governor and his top aides in 2022 after saying Cuomo had inappropriate conversations and physical contact with her when she was part of his security detail.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024.

14 June 2024: Hochul Commission Reviewing Cuomo Pandemic Policies Faults Cuomo for Leadership Failures, but Not COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo Faulted for Pandemic Leadership but Not for Nursing Home Deaths

The New York Times reports on the findings of an audit commissioned by replacement NY State Governor Kathy Hochul on the policies her disgraced predecessor Andrew M. Cuomo implemented during 2020's coronavirus pandemic in New York.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

A long-awaited review of New York State’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declined to fault him for the thousands of people who died of Covid-19 at nursing homes.

The report said the nursing home deaths in New York were largely consistent with national outcomes, but it nonetheless criticized Mr. Cuomo’s decision to centralize the state’s pandemic response in his office as “a significant and unnecessary mistake.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul commissioned the review, which was conducted by the Olson Group, a consulting firm, after she succeeded Mr. Cuomo in 2021. The purpose was to scrutinize New York’s handling of a crisis that shuttered businesses, strained social services and relegated millions of children to remote learning.

Remarkably, the New York Times's story describes the commission's report with words that suggest it was a whitewash for state officials and their decisions during the pandemic:

Investigators describe the nursing home issue as “a source of emotional distress to families as well as an area where the state came up well short in terms of both perception and performance, although overall outcomes were not substantially inconsistent with overall performance in such facilities nationwide.”

But despite blaming Mr. Cuomo’s micromanaging of the pandemic response, the report does not dig deeper on who was responsible for the failures.

Instead, a note in the report’s conclusion says state officials “made it clear” that the report should focus on lessons for the future, rather than mistakes of the past.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024. We're playing catchup for this ongoing story after wrapping up a couple of other projects....

12 June 2024: Cuomo Congressional Testimony on COVID Nursing Home Deaths: "Who Cares?"

Andrew Cuomo repeats infamous ‘who cares?’ on nursing home COVID deaths in congressional interview

While we're waiting for an official transcript of Andrew M. Cuomo's testimony before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, stories like this try to fill the gap, but are at risk of being unreliable. We're presenting this story to give a sense of what information made its way into the media. Here's the introduction:

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeated his infamous “who cares?” line during a grilling by a House committee Tuesday about his administration’s decision to send infected COVID-19 patients into nursing homes — resulting in thousands of deaths during the pandemic, according to a readout of his testimony released Wednesday by Republicans.

Republican majority staff from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic said Cuomo “deflected responsibility” throughout the seven-hour interview about his administration’s devastating March 25, 2020, “must admit” order that shuttled sick patients into senior care facilities statewide.

A transcript of the testimony has yet to be released, and reps for Cuomo who were present for the interview have disputed some of the readout’s claims.

Here's the portion of the "readout" that contains the quote from this story's headline:

“The state order says, ‘You shall take back individuals and you cannot deny them solely on the basis of COVID,’ which left [nursing homes] no option but to accept individuals that we knew would cause risk to the other patients,” he explained.

Molinaro also accused Cuomo’s administration of having “cooked the books” on the nursing home death count, which was later confirmed by two state investigations, once they “knew that the order was causing great loss”

“When pressed to explain the discrepancy between the reported death count and the true mortality rate, Mr. Cuomo was shockingly callous — testifying ‘6,500 versus 9,000…who cares, what difference did it make?'” the readout of the interview on Capitol Hill shows.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024.

11 June 2024: Cuomo Testifies He Was Unaware of Nursing Home Order His Office Edited

Cuomo testifies he was unaware of nursing home order his office edited

The revelation that former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo sought to blame an unknown state government or political staffer for drafting the deadly 25 March 2020 directive he and former New York Public Health Commissioner Howard Zucker approved, implemented, and enforced with tragic consequences is one that deserves much more attention. In the aftermath of Cuomo's 11 June 2024 testimony before a select subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, we sought out any additional reporting that might provide more information about his testimony under oath.

Here is the first of two excerpts from the Albany Times-Union's coverage, which summarizes Cuomo's allegation:

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday told a congressional subcommittee that he was unaware of a controversial directive that had been issued by the state Department of Health in March 2020 directing nursing homes to accept residents even if they had tested positive for COVID-19.

Cuomo’s statement about his lack of knowledge of the directive was made to members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which has been probing New York’s handling of the health crisis.

The former governor’s assertion — that he was unaware of a directive that had been issued to ease pressure on New York hospitals as they became overwhelmed with patients — echoes public statements he made a month later, in April 2020, when he claimed during a news conference that he was not familiar with the advisory.

Sources familiar with a now-closed FBI investigation of the Cuomo administration’s decision to issue that directive said that a draft was edited for more than two days by the Health Department and members of the governor’s office before it was issued on March 25, 2020. Cuomo’s testimony that he was unaware of the directive — even nearly four weeks later — means that he was not briefed on or otherwise part of the discussions of one of the most consequential decisions that was made at the time to deal with hospitals potentially running out of bed space.

There has been a running consideration of whether Cuomo's directive and the actions to implement it constitutes either criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter.

That's the background. In the second excerpt, a former state government official has been identified as the person who potentially drafted Cuomo's ill-fated directive, though they firmly deny it and Cuomo's spokesperson later sought to muddy the waters as to who was responsble for drafting the deadly directive:

In addition, former Health Department officials interviewed in that federal investigation, which was headed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, told the FBI that Cuomo was frequently on their calls with his coronavirus task force, but would usually only listen without speaking. At least one of those former officials told the FBI that Larry Schwartz, a former secretary to the governor who was brought back to help with the public health response, had a hand in editing drafts of the nursing home advisory.

Schwartz on Tuesday said the allegation that he edited or reviewed a draft of the nursing home directive “is false.”

“I don’t know who said that, or who told the FBI that; that is factually an inaccurate statement. I had nothing to do with that. Zero,” Schwartz said. “I had zero to do with anything involving nursing home policies.”

After this story was published online, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, said there was a distinction between staff of the governor’s office and members of the coronavirus task force, who were volunteers.

The governor had announced Schwartz’s return to service on March 23, 2020 — the same day early drafts of the advisory began being exchanged between the governor’s office and the Health Department. The announcement of Schwartz’s appointment to the task force said he would be tasked with “helping the state acquire health care equipment and supplies and increasing New York’s hospital surge capacity.”

Cuomo's reported claims indicate he is continuing to follow a strategy of attempting to pass the buck to avoid legal and criminal consequences in blaming an unknown, unidentified staffer or volunteer for his actions as governor. Even if true, we think that may further implicate Cuomo in those consequences. If the policy had been produced as he describes, Cuomo could easily have acknowledged the policy was flawed and changed course to correct it within a matter of days, with little to no political penalty.

But that's not what happened, is it? Even though Cuomo fully possessed the ability to reverse course at any times his deadly directive remained in effect, he refused to alter it for weeks. As a capable lawyer might argue, that Cuomo did not represents a true failure of leadership.

This entry was added to the timeline on 13 June 2024.

11 June 2024: Cuomo Testimony Short of Remorse for Actions

Cuomo grilled by House panel over NY’s COVID nursing-home deaths: ‘Don’t see a lot of remorse’

This report covers Andrew M. Cuomo's testimony under oath behind closed doors to a U.S. Congressional select subcommittee investigating the consequences of Cuomo's policy decisions while serving as New York's state governor during 2020's coronavirus pandemic, including his deadly 25 March 2020 directive. According to this report, the testimony was primarily self-serving:

A defiant former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday blamed everyone but himself for New York’s deadly COVID nursing-home debacle while being grilled by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, GOP pols said.

“I don’t see a lot of remorse. He is deflecting,” said Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), who is one of several doctors serving on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic as it investigates the former governor’s conduct at the closed-door hearing.

Cuomo allegedly refused to shake the hand of House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York at one point but was otherwise very cordial, sources and lawmakers said — and when asked by The Post how he was feeling heading into the session, replied, “Cool dude, loose mood, always.”

Republican lawmakers exiting the questioning said Cuomo was still trying to frame the congressional inquiry as political and did not provide any noteworthy new context to the panel, instead keeping to what he wrote in his related book, a gushing story of his administration’s response to the horrific crisis.

There was however a confirmation about the nature of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive that undermines claims Cuomo had previously made:

In his opening statement, Cuomo had denied accusations of mishandling the COVID response and pointed to federal guidance as having hampered his administration’s response.

But under sharp questioning from Stefanik on Tuesday, Cuomo acknowledged that the order sending infected older people into the nursing homes was a state directive and not a federal mandate from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a source familiar with the exchange told The Post.

There's more, as Cuomo attempted to assign some of the blame for his deadly 25 March 2020 directive to a lower level bureaucrat in the state government, but also continued to claim it followed directions from the federal government:

Cuomo placed partial blame on a professional staff member at the New York Department of Health for drafting it — but by the end of the marathon session told reporters it was the wrong decision.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have told my Department of health, ‘Don’t listen to the federal government; they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ Because what the facts now show is you know what happened in nursing homes.”

Cuomo's claim was refuted by Representative Susan Molinaro, who continued to describe a motive for Cuomo's subsequent actions:

“They [Cuomo and his then-staff] want to assert that that order is exactly the same as the federal CMS, which it is not,” Molinaro told reporters while the hearing was on a break. “The state order says, ‘You shall take back individuals and you cannot deny them solely on the basis of COVID,’ which left them no option but to accept individuals that we knew would cause risk to the other patients.

“Andrew Cuomo was attempting to shift blame for what was a clear directive,” Molinaro said. “When they identified and knew that the order was causing great loss, they subsequently cooked the books to suggest that the numbers of those who died in nursing homes were much less than we knew.”

There's quite a lot more in the article, much of which repeats Cuomo's claims involving other aspects of how he and his administration implemented its COVID policies that contributed to excess COVID deaths during the 2020 pandemic.

11 June 2024: Cuomo Congressional Testimony on Deadly COVID Directive Taking Place Behind Closed Doors

Ex-New York Gov Andrew Cuomo to face House GOP committee over COVID nursing home deaths

The resigned-in-disgrace former state governor of New York Andrew M. Cuomo delivered testimony under oath behind closed doors to a U.S. Congress select subcommittee on 11 June 2024.

While the content of the arranged testimony will remain under wraps for now, it does mark one of the first attempts to hold Cuomo accountable for the consequences of his deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Here's an excerpt from the article describing what Cuomo faces in the U.S. Congress:

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is paying a visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a closed-door transcribed interview with the House select subcommittee investigating the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo's handling of the pandemic as governor has been a significant focus of the panel's – in particular, a March 25, 2020, executive order by the then-governor that restricted nursing homes from refusing to admit or readmit residents "solely based on confirmed or suspect[ed] diagnosis of COVID-19."

"We want to uncover the circumstances that led to this. There has to be some kind of process where this was written up and he signed it. And we want to make sure that something like this is never repeated," subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital. "I'm a physician who happens to care. And I'm concerned for my fellow Americans, especially during a very difficult time in a pandemic. So, who advised such things?"

Wenstrup said committee investigators have "several hours of questions" lined up for the former governor, such as "Why was he spending so much time writing a book while we had a pandemic going on, while we have this nursing home problem?" and "Why did it take him so long to rescind [the executive order] when it became very obvious that this was a bad plan?"

A spokesperson for the committee's Democrat minority told Fox News Digital, "The Select Subcommittee Democrats take seriously any effort to evade transparency and mislead the public and remain committed to the forward-looking work of fortifying infection control and prevention to protect America’s nursing homes residents."

A damning report released in March 2022 by the New York State comptroller found Cuomo's Health Department "was not transparent in its reporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes" and it "understated the number of deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%" during some points of the pandemic.

We'll see what other headlines come out from it.

7 June 2024: Cuomo to Testify on NY COVID Nursing Home Policies on 11 June 2024

Cuomo to be questioned by COVID subcommittee for nursing home deaths

Andrew M. Cuomo is scheduled to testify under oath before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives on 11 June 2024. This article gives a preview of some of the questions will be raised with respect to Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and its consequences.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is slated to appear before Congress on Tuesday in a closed-door interview to answer for the outsize number of nursing home deaths in the Empire State during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic subpoenaed the former governor in March. It set June 11 as the date for testimony after several months of scheduling delays.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), said in a press statement on Friday that it is “well past time for Cuomo to stop dodging accountability” for his nursing home policy in 2020 that required care facilities to accept COVID-positive patients.

“Not only did the former Governor put the elderly in harm’s way, but he also attempted to cover-up his failures by hiding the true nursing home death rate,” Wenstrup said.

Cuomo issued an order on March 25, 2020, that prohibited nursing homes from denying readmission or admission on the basis of a positive COVID test. The former governor has publicly argued even after leaving office that the controversial order followed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidance at the time.

This entry was added to the timeline on 8 June 2024.

16 May 2024: Editorial: NY Needs a Serious Solution to Address Public Officials' Ethical Problems

Editorial: Act now for a lasting ethics fix

The editors of the Albany Times-Union weigh in on the aftermath of the NY state appellate court's finding that the replacement state ethics watchdog agency was unconstitutional:

While it is possible the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, will hear the case and even overturn last week's ruling, lawmakers would be foolish to wait before taking action. The ruling was unanimous, after all, suggesting that the flaws with COELIG are real and significant. Lawmakers must craft a fix that can work and last.

As we've said many times, the state needs a transparent ethics body appointed by a range of elected officials, with safeguards in place to guarantee independence from political meddling. Given New York's long and sordid history with political corruption, the need for such a body was obvious long before Mr. Cuomo was accused of using on-duty government staffers to help produce a book that paid him so handsomely.

Last week's ruling makes it clear that a permanent and bulletproof solution to the problem of ethics enforcement requires a constitutional amendment put forth by the Legislature. That process could put the proposal up for a statewide vote as soon as November 2025 — but only if lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul act quickly.

Indeed, the task should be near the top of the Legislature's to-do list for the current session. Few things are more important than guarding against public corruption. In a state where two of the past four governors resigned in disgrace, New Yorkers have rightly grown cynical about state government and the willingness of elected officials to combat wrongdoing in their peer group.

The two New York state governors to resign in disgrace over their alleged misconduct in office are Eliot Spitzer and Andrew M. Cuomo. You have to go to Illinois to find a state with a worse reputation for public corruption.

This entry was added to the timeline on 26 May 2024.

9 May 2024: NY Appellate Court Says State Ethics Commission Is Unconstitutional

Appellate court agrees that state ethics commission is unconstitutional

The replacement ethics commission New York state lawmakers set up to address the shady dealings of Andrew M. Cuomo's multi-million COVID book deal has been declared to be unconstitutional by a state appellate court. Because it has, Cuomo now stands to keep the $5 million he gained for the he produced with the assistance of state government officials.

Here's an excerpt from City & State New York's article:

The future of state ethics is in jeopardy after a state appellate court upheld a lower court decision finding that New York’s current ethics watchdog commission is unconstitutional. The ruling marks another victory for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who brought the lawsuit after the commission started to investigate his $5 million book COVID book deal.

In a 5-0 ruling, a mid-level appellate panel of judges ruled that the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, the oversight board that administers the state’s ethics laws, violated the state constitution. The state Legislature originally created the commission in 2022 to replace the previous one – the Joint Commission on Public Ethics – that Cuomo himself had created in 2011. “We find that by enacting the foregoing scheme for the enforcement of the applicable ethics laws, the Legislature, though well intentioned in its actions, violated the bedrock principles of separation of powers,” reads the decision.

Although the court's decision favors Cuomo, it is not an endorsement of his ethics as the court did not address them. It is perhaps best understood as an indictment of sloppy lawmaking on the part of state legislators.

This entry was added to the timeline on 26 May 2024.

27 April 2024: Confirmed: Cuomo to testify to Congress on 2020 COVID policy for nursing homes

Disgraced ex-NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo agrees to testify before House COVID-19 panel

The resigned-in-disgrace former governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo will comply with a subpoena to testify under oath to a Congressional subcommittee probing the consequences of his deadly 25 March 2020 directive to force New York state nursing homes to admit patients known to be infected with COVID in order to free up hospital bed space. Here's an excerpt from this report:

Disgraced former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has agreed to appear before a panel of House lawmakers and discuss his administration’s controversial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York nursing homes, the chairman of the committee said Friday.

“Governor Cuomo will be appearing before our select Subcommittee on the Pandemic on June 11,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) told CNN host Jake Tapper.

“This will be a transcribed interview at 10 a.m.,” Wenstrup added, indicating that his testimony will take place behind closed doors.

Cuomo’s agreement to testify comes more than a month after the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic issued a subpoena for his testimony.

Both former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and former NY State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker will both testify before the congressional panel. Both Cuomo and Zucker's names appear on the deadly directive.

This entry was added to the timeline on 29 April 2024.

6 March 2024: Cuomo Subpoenaed by Congress to Testify Under Oath on COVID Nursing Home Deaths

House COVID panel subpoenas former NY Gov. Cuomo over nursing home deaths

It's been a long time coming, but Andrew M. Cuomo has finally been subpoenaed by a committee of the U.S. Congress to testify under oath about his deadly 25 March 2020 directive forcing New York state nursing homes to admit patients known to have COVID infections to free up bed space at hospitals.

Here's an excerpt from The Hill's Nathaniel Weixel's report:

The House committee investigating the coronavirus pandemic response issued a subpoena Tuesday for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) over his alleged failure to cooperate with a probe into the state’s COVID-19 nursing home policies.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is demanding Cuomo appear for a closed-door deposition on May 24. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the subcommittee’s chairman, has previously requested interviews with former Cuomo administration officials, including former top aide Melissa DeRosa.

Unlike other probes, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is focusing on Cuomo's deadly directive and its fatal consequences:

Specifically, the panel is looking into Cuomo’s “must admit” order, which said nursing homes could not turn away patients who tested positive for COVID-19, as long as they were medically stable.

The facilities were also prohibited from requiring hospitalized residents to be tested for the virus before their admission or readmission in nursing homes.

The move was made early in the pandemic and was meant to help relieve overburdened hospitals, which were sending patients elsewhere to help free up capacity.

The move to issue the subpoena comes after months of stonewalling requests for information from the committee by Cuomo and his legal team. The article indicates Cuomo's lawyers are attempting to delay Cuomo's testimony until August.

16 February 2024: House COVID-19 Panel Requests Testimony from Former Cuomo Administration Officials

House COVID-19 panel requests testimony from 4 former Cuomo admin officials

There's been movement in the Congressional probe of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Four former Cuomo administration have been asked to testify before a congressional committee investigating the consequences of Cuomo's policy. Here's an excerpt from the story:

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has asked four former members of disgraced New York ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration to testify on “must admit” orders issued to nursing homes at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Letters were sent out Friday to Elizabeth Garvey, a former special counselor and senior adviser to Cuomo; Gareth Rhodes, the former deputy superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services; James Malatras, the ex-governor’s former policy adviser; and Linda Lacewell, the former superintendent of the Department of Financial Services.

The letters requested that they sit for in person transcribed interviews before the Republican-led panel investigating government actions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) warned the foursome that the committee “will be forced to evaluate the use of the compulsory” measures if they don’t appear for the voluntary interviews next month.

The request these former officials testify under oath indicates the committee is interested in how the policy was developed, implemented, and administered, which took the combined efforts of hundreds of state government officials.

This entry was added to the timeline on 20 February 2024.

6 February 2024: Andrew Cuomo Demands US AG Review 'Deeply Flawed' Probe into Sexual Harassment Allegations

Cuomo asks U.S. attorney general to examine probe of his case

Andrew M. Cuomo's public relations and legal defense teams have responded to the U.S. Department of Justice's findings that Cuomo engaged in the sexual harassment of multiple women while serving as New York's state governor. Their response isn't terribly original, but more on that after the excerpt from the article:

Disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is demanding U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland launch an internal review into the investigation which found he engaged in "sexual harassment and retaliation."

In a letter to Garland Monday, Cuomo's counsel requested discussion of alleged conflicts of interest surrounding the conclusion reached by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and New York Executive Chamber. Glavin PLLC urged the DOJ to investigate the purported conflicts of interest and provide evidence of its findings Cuomo created an adverse workplace for 13 female employees.

“The agreement is a travesty,” the firm wrote. “It is the result of conflicted and irresponsible decision-making and an indefensibly skewed and secretive process.”

Glavin accuses the DOJ of basing its agreement almost entirely on information gathered by New York State Attorney General Letitia James during a “deeply flawed” 2021 investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo. The firm claims the DOJ never contacted the former governor to address concerns James's subsequent report was incomplete, inaccurate, misleading and biased.

The DOJ's findings of Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment of 13 women were included as part of the 26 Janaury 2024 settlement between the DOJ and the New York state government.

Describing the multiple probes finding unsettling issues with Andrew M. Cuomo's official and personal actions while serving as New York's state governor as either "flawed" or "politically biased" has become an evergreen go-to tactic for Cuomo's PR and legal teams.

This entry was added to the timeline on 11 February 2024.

26 January 2024: U.S. DOJ Confirms Cuomo Operated "Sexually Hostile" Workplace as NY Governor

Cuomo Created ‘Sexually Hostile’ Workplace, Says Justice Department

The resigned-in-disgrace former Governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, was dealt a serious blow in his fight against being held accountable for allegations he sexually harassed multiple women while serving as governor. The U.S. Derpartment of Justice announced it confirmed many of the claims originally documented in NY state attorney general's investigation.

Those claims had provided state legislators and officials, particularly members of Cuomo's Democratic Party, with the leverage they needed to compel Cuomo to choose to resign rather than face impeachment while insulating themselves from the political fallout from the outcome of Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals that stemmed from Cuomo's infamous deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

Under the control of the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Justice has likewise sought to minimize the political fallout to Democratic party memebers from Cuomo's nursing home scandals. The DOJ previously declined to pursue federal charges of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter against Cuomo and has largely adopted the state politicians' strategy of using the sexual harassment allegations to minimize their association with "the governor who kills grandmas", to coin a phrase.

The DOJ announcement is a big enough deal that even the New York Times was compelled to cover the story, which has all the characteristics of a Friday afternoon news dump. Here's an excerpt of that coverage:

The findings appear to largely substantiate the investigation of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who concluded that Mr. Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, amid a culture of fear and intimidation. Mr. Cuomo, who denied having sexually harassed anyone, resigned in August 2021, shortly after the release of Ms. James’s report.

Since his departure, Mr. Cuomo has engaged in a multipronged campaign to discredit the report and Ms. James as being politically motivated, and has been slowly maneuvering toward re-entering political life.

But Mr. Cuomo’s efforts may be sharply compromised by the Justice Department findings, which determined that he repeatedly subjected women who worked for him to unwelcome sexual contact, comments and looks, and gave preferential treatment to some women based on their physical appearance.

From a legal standpoint, the DOJ's findings make it more difficult for Cuomo's legal team, which is being paid for by New York state taxpayers, to defend Cuomo against the civil lawsuits filed against him by his alleged victims. We'll see how Cuomo's legal and political team's respond.

Additional Coverage

The New York Post reports "Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed at least 13 female employees, retaliated against ex-staff: Feds, in which they capture the response of Cuomo's legal and political teams:

Attorneys for Cuomo continue to deny the allegations and further claim that the federal investigation was politically motivated.

“This is nothing more than a political settlement with no investigation,” Rita Glavin, an attorney for the former governor, wrote in a statement.

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said Cuomo hadn’t been interviewed as part of the federal investigation. He also bashed Breon Peace the U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of New York who signed off on the settlement, claiming he’s biased because he used to work at the same firm as one of the prosecutors in the attorney general’s investigation.

“This isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” Azzopardi said.

And yet, it has been written. Including in the Albany Times Union's article "Justice Department says Cuomo fostered 'sexually hostile' workplace", which emphasizes the DOJ's findings came in connection with a settlement with the state of New York:

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday announced it had reached an agreement with the New York governor’s office “to resolve the department’s claims that the Executive Chamber under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual harassment and retaliation” in violation of civil rights laws.

The agreement memorializes reforms that were enacted by Gov. Kathy Hochul and also institutes additional measures that federal authorities said are intended to prevent sexual harassment or retaliation in the Executive Chamber. The investigation, by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, had not been made public until the office announced the agreement on Friday.

The probe relied largely on the findings of a report issued by the state attorney general’s office in August 2021 that concluded Cuomo had sexually harassed or acted inappropriately with 11 women. The report also found that Cuomo and some of his top aides had cultivated a toxic workplace.

But the settlement with the U.S. attorney’s specifies that it found that Cuomo “subjected at least 13 female employees of New York state, including Executive Chamber employees, to a sexually hostile work environment.” The agreement does not identify the 13 employees or provide details on the at least two additional women it states had been subjected to a hostile work environment.

The three articles together provide a good overall picture of the DOJ's 26 January 2024 announcement.

19 January 2024: Cuomo Sues NY Attorney General, Demands Records from Sexual Harassment Probe

Cuomo files new lawsuit against attorney general, demanding records

The legal proceedings surrounding the multiple sexual harassment allegations involving former NY state governor Andrew M. Cuomo have been moving at a glacial pace. But something has actually happened, with Cuomo's attorneys filing suit against NY state attorney general Letitia James demanding her office turn over records from its probe into the allegations that compelled him to resign in disgrace. Here are the leading paragraphs summarizing the legal development:

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is continuing his battle with the state attorney general’s office for all the files from the sexual harassment investigation that led to his resignation in August 2021.

Attorneys for Cuomo filed a petition in state Supreme Court in New York City this week seeking to compel the attorney general’s office to turn over the materials in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. Cuomo’s attorneys argue the attorney general’s office has unlawfully delayed providing a response to that request.

The case was filed as Cuomo’s attorneys also have tried to subpoena the investigative records in connection with two federal lawsuits that have been filed against the former governor — one by a female State Police investigator and another by a former female aide. Both accused him of sexual harassment.

The state attorney general's office has declined to provide the records requested by Cuomo's attorneys since it is not a party in the federal lawsuits filed by Cuomo's alleged victims. The article indicates the NY attorney general's office has about 73,000 documents related to its probe of sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo.

This entry was added to the timeline on 21 January 2024.

19 January 2024: Depositions of Cuomo's Alleged Sexual Harassment Victims to Proceed

Andrew Cuomo accusers will give depositions over ongoing lawsuits against ex-NY gov

The slowly moving wheels of justice turned just a little after a federal judge ruled that Andrew M. Cuomo's attorneys will be allowed to deposition his alleged victims of sexual harassment under oath. Here's an excerpt describing the latest progress in the multiple lawsuits Cuomo faces:

In a sweeping ruling, judges ruled that Cuomo is able to demand some documents and depositions from his accusers and other former state officials involved in the former governor’s scandals.

The judge’s order came after months of back-and-forth between Cuomo and several women who have accused him of sexual harassment, finally granting some clarity in a dizzying web of lawsuits.

Cuomo, who denies the allegations against him, had issued dozens of subpoenas requesting mountains of evidence from 36 people and government entities surrounding Attorney General Letitia James’ 2021 report alleging the governor sexually harassed 11 women.

Judge Taryn Merkyl slimmed down many of Cuomo’s evidence requests, which several of his accusers were fighting on grounds that they claim were extremely burdensome to produce and, in some cases, were being requested to embarrass them.

Separately, Cuomo received his first payment from the state of New York for paying for the cost of his legal defense earlier in the week.

This entry was added to the timeline on 21 January 2024.

16 January 2024: NY Taxpayers Pay $565,000 for Cuomo Legal Defense for Sexual Harassment Charges

Cuomo’s campaign gets $565,000 from taxpayers. And more is on the way.

Andrew M. Cuomo may have chosen to resign in disgrace rather than face impeachment proceedings, but that doesn't mean he has to pay for the legal bills related to allegations of his sexual harassment of state government employees.

New York state taxpayers will pick up the bill. In fact, this report indicates they just paid the first $565,000 for what appears to be a very generous perk for New York state officials. Here's an excerpt from the report:

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s campaign account balance has grown for the first time since he left office over two years ago, inching up from $7.7 million to $7.8 million over the past six months.

But the growth isn’t due to a surge in donations for Cuomo, who has been weighing a New York City mayoral run.

Rather, it’s due to a New York law that requires the state to reimburse legal fees for elected officials who have been accused of crimes that don’t result in convictions. The Albany County sheriff’s office brought a misdemeanor charge of forcible touching against Cuomo in 2021, which was tossed after prosecutors concluded the complaint was defective.

Cuomo received a $565,000 check from the state comptroller’s office last week, thanks to the law.

That likely won’t be the end of the money the ex-governor receives from the state.

According his campaign finance reports Tuesday, Cuomo paid $300,000 to law firm Holwell Shuster & Goldberg since July. That brings the total he has spent on legal fees to $6.9 million since the Assembly started impeachment proceedings in 2021.

The money, which has gone to a wide variety of investigations on allegations that include sexual misconduct and the misuse of state resources to write his pandemic memoir, won’t all be reimbursable. Still, Cuomo’s campaign is expected to get back several million dollars from the state as they work out the details with the comptroller’s office.

This entry was added to the timeline on 21 January 2024.

3 January 2024: NY Governor Hochul Sitting on Independent Review of Cuomo-Era Nursing Home Policies

State yet to make independent nursing homes report public months year-long review

New York State Senator Jim Tedisco (R, Glenville) is demanding answers from the Governor's office on pandemic-era state policies on nursing homes. It's been nearly three years after a damning report from Attorney General Letitia James found the State greatly under-counted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes under the Cuomo Administration.

Governor Kathy Hochul was Andrew Cuomo's lieutenant governor at the time of the pandemic--when a March 2020 order from Cuomo put COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes. It was a policy the state eventually backtracked on after CBS 6 reporting involving a whistleblower; but the damage had already been done....

In 2022-- the now-Governor Hochul announced she ordered an independent review of the state's policies early on in the pandemic.

The state hired an outside firm on a $4.3 million, one-year contract starting in November of 2022. That was nearly 14 months ago. Senator Tedisco is calling on the Governor to make that report public, immediately and without redactions.

It's long past time for vital questions about the resigned-in-disgrace former NY Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive's impact on New York nursing homes to be answered.

This entry was added to the timeline on 6 January 2024.

23 December 2023: Probe of Top Cuomo Aide's Statements after U.S. House Testimony

House to probe potential coronavirus ‘lies’ by ex-Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa

Melissa DeRosa, the former top aide to resigned-in-disgrace NY Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, will be subject to an investigation by congressional investigators following statements she made about the former governor's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. Those statements apparently did not align with those given by former NY Health Commissioner Howard Zucker's closed-door testimony last week. The disparity is what is prompting the probe.

The House of Representatives is gearing up to probe “potential lies and discrepancies” by a one-time top aide to former Gov. Cuomo regarding her involvement in the state’s deadly directive to nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive residents.

The March 2020 order potentially caused 1,000 additional nursing home deaths, according to an analysis by The Empire Center.

During a transcribed hearing behind closed doors this week in Washington D.C., former Cuomo Health Commissioner Howard Zucker told members of the bipartisan House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that Cuomo’s then-Secretary Melissa DeRosa signed off on Cuomo’s COVID-19 policies.

“During his transcribed interview yesterday, former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Howard Zucker, testified that former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, played a ‘critical’ role in drafting and implementing the state’s must-admit order,” a committee spokesman told The Post.

“This accusation directly contradicts Ms. DeRosa’s recent letter to the Select Subcommittee where she claimed she does not have any responsive documents nor subject matter expertise to contribute to the Select Subcommittee’s investigation,” the spokesman added. “The Select Subcommittee looks forward to asking Ms. DeRosa about any potential lies and discrepancies during her transcribed interview.”

This entry was added to the timeline on 25 December 2023.

16 December 2023: Howard Zucker to Testify in U.S. House on Cuomo's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

Howard Zucker to testify on New York’s disastrous COVID response in front of House committee

One of the key officials behind Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive will be giving testimony behind closed doors on Monday, 18 December 2023. Here's an excerpt from the New York Post's report:

Former state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker will be hauled in front of Congress next week to answer questions about the state’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Zucker will sit Monday for a closed-door, transcribed interview with members of the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

As former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s health czar, Zucker was responsible for a March 2020 order which forced Empire State nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive residents returning from hospitals.

Zucker also forbade nursing homes from testing the returning residents for the virus.

The virus was especially deadly for the elderly, and the order potentially caused 1,000 additional nursing-home deaths, according to an analysis from The Empire Center, a conservative-leaning think tank.

Since resigning as New York Commissioner of Health, Zucker has since joined the Centers for Disease Control as a Biden administration political appointee.

14 December 2023: U.S. House Panel Seeks Testimony from Top NY State Officials on Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

House panel pushes to interview Cuomo and staff about pandemic

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee is finally getting around to compelling testimony under oath related to Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. Here is an excerpt from the Albany Times Union's Brendon Lyons report:

A congressional subcommittee probing New York’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic — and the deaths of more than 15,000 nursing home residents — is continuing its efforts to interview former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and top officials who served in his administration.

U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York City sent a letter to former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa this week requesting for a second time that she appear before their panel on Jan. 19.

The subcommittee sent an initial letter to DeRosa on Dec. 1, requesting her testimony and any records she has about the Cuomo administration’s controversial March 2020 directive to New York’s nursing homes to allow residents afflicted with COVID-19 to remain in or return to those facilities, even if they were being discharged from hospitals while still testing positive for the virus....

The subcommittee’s letter cited excerpts from DeRosa’s recently published memoir, “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis.” In the book — which focuses largely on the Cuomo administration’s handling of the pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that led to his August 2021 resignation — DeRosa wrote she was the “the most senior member of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s team leading the nation through a once-in-a-century pandemic, making life-or-death decisions, projecting our administration’s competence to an admiring world.”

“You publicly discussed and defended the Cuomo administration’s nursing home order — arguing that it was consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines,” the letter from Wenstrup and Malliotakis states. “Of course, despite your statements, the order was not consistent with federal guidance. … You owe answers to the thousands of families who lost loved ones in New York nursing homes.”

The article indicates the panel is also seeking testimony from former NY Health Commissioner Howard Zucker and the resigned-in-disgrace former NY governor Andrew M. Cuomo, whose deadly 25 March 2020 directive led to his administration's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

This entry was added to the timeline on 16 December 2023.

24 November 2023: Former Assistant Sues Cuomo for Sexual Harassment

Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo sued for sexual assault by former executive assistant Brittany Commisso

Brittany Commisso has finally filed a civil lawsuit against resigned-in-disgrace New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo. The following excerpt describes what the allegations are and explains why the former executive assistant is taking legal action now.

Disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo is being sued for sexual assault by his former executive assistant Brittany Commisso, according to a legal summons filed just before the deadline for the Adult Survivors Act, The Post learned Friday.

Commisso alleges that while she worked in the Executive Chamber as an executive assistant from 2019 through August 2021 her ex-boss subjected her to “humiliating and demeaning tasks, hugs, kisses, sexual touching of the buttocks and forcible touching of the breast.”

The divorced mom of one, who joined the then-governor’s team in 2017, has previously accused Cuomo, 65, of groping her inside the Executive Mansion — an allegation that led to a misdemeanor criminal complaint being filed against the former governor.

She said Cuomo began a campaign of retaliation against her starting on Dec. 7, 2020 the day she rejected his attempt “to engage in sexual acts,” the summons filed in Albany Supreme Court on Wednesday alleges.

The claimed retaliation includes allegations of a 'virtual' demotion, loss of overtime, and ostracization from other employees of New York's executive office.

Like all legal matters involving Andrew M. Cuomo, it's reasonable to expect the case to move at a glacial pace through New York's state courts.

21 November 2023: Interview with Melissa DeRosa on Andrew Cuomo's NY COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

Top Cuomo Aide Melissa DeRosa Gives Unvarnished Take On Nursing Home Deaths, AG Letitia James' Probe

Forbes Newsroom's Brittany Lewis interviewed former Secretary to New York Governor Melissa DeRosa on the topics of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly nursing home deaths scandals and the sexual harassment allegations that successfully drove Cuomo to resign in disgrace. Here's the video interview, the bulk of the content related to nursing homes takes place between the 8:00 and the 18:00 minute marks:

There's really nothing new in her comments, which should be taken as part of Andrew M. Cuomo's ongoing campaign to exonerate himself from any criminal and civil wrongdoing that resulted from his deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

She does make a concerted effort to try to muddy the waters between policies enacted in 11 states and those of New York in pushing her claim the COVID nursing home deaths scandals were politically motivated, however it remains that only New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan's policies have been recognized as forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients being discharged from hospitals without testing to verify if they were still contagious. A fifth state, California, also maintained such a policy, but was quickly eliminated within a matter of days after recognizing the risk associated with it. Of all these states, only New Jersey followed New York's direct example in crafting its own version of Cuomo's deadly directive.

This entry was added to the timeline on 24 November 2023.

27 October 2023: Cuomo Acknowledges Motive for Dumping COVID Patients Into Nursing Homes

Bill Maher confronts Cuomo on nursing home scandal, ex-NY gov calls questions 'Monday morning quarterbacking'

Andrew M. Cuomo, the resigned-in-disgrace former governor of New York, finally acknowledged the motive behind his deadly 25 March 2020 directive, which forced nursing homes in New York to accept COVID patients being discharged from hospitals without testing to verify if they might still be contagious. The following excerpt presents a discussion that occurred between HBO Real Time host Bill Maher and Cuomo on the topic on 27 October 2023.

During Friday's "Overtime" segment on YouTube, Maher read a viewer question posed to Cuomo asking whether he would have done anything differently during COVID.

"So you allowed people who had been in the hospital – older people, from a nursing home, now they go to the hospital to go back into the nursing home without testing them," Maher said. "ProPublica says you were the only state to do it without testing them when they went back into the nursing home. And that's what caused the death in the nursing homes. Is that true?

"No, the short answer is no." Cuomo responded. "First, this is Monday morning quarterbacking by which I could make the New York Jets champion, right, if we're gonna do this. When COVID started, it was – all of the disinformation was amazing, right? It was coming from China, wet market, zootrophic virus, it was going to California and the state of Washington so we banned travel to China, from China. It turned out that China had already spread it to Europe. All the European flights were coming to New York, JFK. So it had been here for months and it was astronomical. When we first found out about it… they were projecting we would need 150,000 hospital beds to deal with the number of infected, we only had 50,000 in the entire state of New York."

"You did it to free up beds," Maher said.

"We were afraid of losing hospital beds," Cuomo said, "but people who were in hospitals who were considered medically stable, who were tested, were sent to nursing homes if the nursing home said they could treat that person in a way that protects the other people in the nursing home. And that was a way to make sure we had enough hospital beds.

Here's a video excerpt of the interview:

The full interview also covers the sexual harassment allegations that were used to successfully force Cuomo to give up his powerful position as New York's state governor. That portion of the interview has drawn greater attention in the media.

This entry was entered into the timeline on 24 November 2023.

26 October 2023: NCPR Interview with Melissa DeRosa

Former Cuomo aide talks NY COVID response, thoughts on Hochul in new memoir

North Country Public Radio's Karen DeWitt interviewed Melissa DeRosa, the former Secretary to the Governor of the State of New York, who served under the resigned-in-disgrace Andrew M. Cuomo while he governed the state. In that role, she was among the most powerful officials within New York's state government and was the first official within that administration to acknowledge its attempted cover-up of the excess nursing home deaths that resulted from Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

In this interview, which came in connection with the promotion of her recent book, she goes a bit farther in acknowledging the devastating impact of that policy. Here's what NCPR calls a "lightly edited" portion of the transcript:

KAREN DeWITT: You present a defense of the March 25, 2020 nursing home policy. It became kind of an infamous decision to allow hospitalized COVID-positive nursing home residents to go back into the nursing homes. And you also talked about the report by Attorney General Tish James that said you undercounted the deaths by 50%. You present a defense of that, but I wonder, in retrospect, do you think that if you and the governor had maybe just apologized for that decision, instead of kind of doubling down on it, maybe it would have played out differently politically?

MELISSA DeROSA: I don't mean to try to present a defense of it in the book. My intention was to try to explain it to people: what it was, what happened, what was going on around us. I think that, particularly as it related to nursing homes, and the weaponization and the politicization of what happened around nursing homes, combined with the very real pain of the families who lost loved ones, it just became this political football that it never should have been. And looking back, if I knew then what I knew today, I would do a lot of things differently. But my heart goes out to people who lost loved ones in nursing homes. As I write in the book, you know, every decision that was being made was done with the best possible intent with the information that we had at the time.

As as a reminder, the decision was to force patients known to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to be accepted into nursing homes, where the portion of the state's population known to be the most vulnerable to dying from a COVID-19 lived, including many that had no confirmed or suspected cases at the time the decision was made, in order to free up bed space at New York's hospitals.

Not only was that policy was immediately flagged for its disastrous potential when it was announced and implemented, Governor Cuomo's own statements in the days preceding it confirm that both he and his adminstration knew it was virtually guaranteed to have disastrous consequences.

This entry was added to the timeline on 28 October 2023.

19 October 2023: Lessons from a 20-20 Hindsight View of 2020's Coronavirus Pandemic

This timeline entry was added on 21 October 2023. It discusses analysis produced by the Empire Center's Bill Hammond in August 2023 that helps explain why Cuomo's policy choices proved to be unnecessarily disastrous. It was originally featured at Political Calculations.

---

How different would New York City's experience during the first wave of 2020's coronavirus pandemic have been if public officials had better and more timely information about how many people were really being infected by it?

That's a fascinating question raised by the Empire Center's Bill Hammond's retrospective analysis of the pandemic's impact in New York. In that analysis, Hammond features a chart comparing the information public officials had on the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's improved estimates of how extensive coronavirus infections likely were in reality in early 2020. Here's a slightly modified* interactive version of the chart:

Compared with the official count produced by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) in early 2020, COVID-19 infections were much more numerous and peaked much earlier in the IHME's improved estimates Hammond describes what the chart shows:

As seen in Figure 1, the state’s outbreak likely began by early February, a full month before its first laboratory-confirmed case [2]. The estimated number of infections soared to more than 60,000 per day on March 19, which was six times higher and three weeks earlier than shown by the state’s testing data.

A second attempt to model the first wave of New York’s pandemic estimated that it began on Jan. 19 and reached a peak infection rate of almost 100,000 per day on March 24 [3]. These estimates indicate that the curve had already begun to bend – that is, the rate of increase had begun to slow – before Cuomo issued his stay-at-home order effective March 22 – likely because individuals and businesses were spontaneously limiting their activities in reaction to official warnings and news coverage.

Hammond explains how better knowledge of the true picture for the spread of COVID-19 infections could have shaped the response of both New York's governor and the state's public health officials:

The virus’s rapid spread in February and early March of 2020 shows the importance of detecting outbreaks early and responding quickly. If officials had become aware of this surge even a week or two sooner – and notified the public – they almost certainly could have avoided swamping hospitals and saved thousands of lives.

If they had merely known when the wave reached its peak, they might have avoided mistakes in late March.

For example, Cuomo and his administration would have had less cause to worry about a looming shortage of hospital capacity. They could have avoided spending time and money to build emergency hospital facilities that went largely unused. And they might never have issued the March 25 directive transferring Covid-positive patients into nursing homes – a decision that likely added to the high death rate in those facilities and contributed to Cuomo’s political downfall. [6]

Here's an example of the official data and modeled projections they did have in early 2020. The following chart is taken from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)'s 25 March 2020 projections showing its estimates of the minimum, likely, and maximum number of additional hospital beds that would be needed in the state of New York to care for the model's expected surge of coronavirus patients.

This chart presents just one of several coronavirus models whose projections were being combined and presented to Governor Cuomo by consultants from McKinsey & Co. to assist their ad hoc public health policy making. Had New York state government officials instead known the daily number of new COVID-19 infections had already passed its peak, they almost certainly would not have reached the point of panic they did. Panic that resulted in their creating one of the worse public health outcomes in U.S. history.

Unlike those now mostly-former New York state officials, the IHME is at least learning from its mistakes in modeling 2020's coronavirus pandemic.

Previously on Political Calculations

• Governor Cuomo and the Coronavirus Models
• Coronavirus Deaths and Nursing Home Admission Policies
• The Biggest Math Story of 2020
• Visualizing ICL's Pandemic Model's Failures

References

Hammond, Bill. Behind the Curve: The Extreme Severity of New York City's First Pandemic Wave. Empire Center. [PDF Document]. 30 August 2023.

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. COVID-19 estimate downloads. March 25, 2020. [ZIP folder]. Accessed 15 October 2023.

Footnotes from Behind the Curve

[2] https://www.healthdata.org/covid/data-downloads.

[3] David García-García et al., “Identification of the first COVID-19 infections in the US using a retrospective analysis (REMEDID),” Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, Vol. 42, August 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1877584522000405#fig0001.

[6] For more on the Cuomo administration’s handling of the pandemic in nursing homes, see the Empire Center’s August 2021 report, “ ‘Like Fire Through Dry Grass’: Documenting the Cuomo Administration’s Cover-up of a Nursing Home Nightmare.” https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/like-fire-through-dry-grass/

Other Notes

* We altered the dimensions of the chart and the line thickness for the IHME estimate of infections. We also added the options for downloading a copy of the chart and sharing it on social media.