8 April 2021: NY Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli Passes the Buck

DiNapoli: AG James can probe Cuomo nursing home scandals without my approval

It's difficult to describe the extent to which elected politicians and state officials have set up a system to protect themselves. The first excerpt from this report explains why DiNapoli's participation was needed to make a referral to NY Attorney General Letitia James' office to initiate an investigation with the teeth needed to subpoena information:

Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said Thursday that State Attorney General Letitia James can launch a sweeping criminal probe of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s controversial COVID-19 nursing home policies and decisions without a referral from DiNapoli’s office.

DiNapoli responded to a letter sent to him last month by VoicesForSeniors, a group founded by relatives of nursing home residents who died from the coronavirus last year.

In the letter, the group urged DiNapoli to make a “referral” to Attorney General Letitia James under Section 63(3) of the state’s Executive Law to probe Cuomo’s nursing home policies and actions during the pandemic that rocked New York last year — including the financial terms for the publishing of the governor’s “Leadership” book amid the pandemic.

Such a referral would permit DiNapoli and James to “use both the audit power of the comptroller’s office and the investigatory and enforcement power of the attorney general,” the activists said.

But DiNapoli passed the buck on Cuomo’s COVID-19 nursing home scandal and put the ball in James’ court.

This second excerpt focuses on DiNapoli's official response to the letter requesting he refer a criminal investigation to Attorney General Letitia James' office:

“Based on my discussions with your office, it is my understanding that under the existing authority vested in the the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Control Unit, your office already possesses the requisite authority to conduct any criminal investigation related to nursing homes,” Sheingold said in a letter to Jose Maldonado, the deputy attorney general for the criminal division.

That's an odd choice that disregards that many of Governor Cuomo's scandals involved the use of government funds and the misuse of state resources to provide benefits to Governor Cuomo's politically connected associates and family members.

We'll see how NY AG James responds, which will determine the extent to which DiNapoli has either aided or hindered a criminal investigation of the Cuomo administration's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.