26 July 2021: Bill Hammond on Biden DOJ Dropping Non-Criminal Probe of Cuomo Nursing Home Deaths

Q&A: What the nursing home inquiry's end means

Bill Hammond of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Empire Center for Public Policy addressed several questions in which he explained the significance of Biden DOJ's action to suspend its civil probe of excess COVID deaths in New York's nursing homes during the period the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. In the following excerpt, Hammond's response to the fourth question asked is one that stood out for its potential significance:

Spectrum News 1: To that point, I've heard it's harder to make a criminal investigation than a civil rights case. What does that tell us?

Hammond: I thought it was noteworthy this letter referred to the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act and not the false claims. That original investigation applied to four states. The False Claims Act was limited to New York. The letter to the Republican members of Congress from the Justice Department only referred to that original investigation that was in all four states. So, there's a possibility in my mind anyway that DOJ is still looking at the False Claims Act piece of this.

I don't feel like that letter is a signal Cuomo is off the hook. If anything the most dangerous investigation to him and his administration is the one coming out of the U.S. Attorney's Office. And that one is still alive, on good authority, is alive. It's not going anywhere.

Since Hammond's comments, media outlets reported the Biden DOJ is continuing its probe of New Jersey Governor Murphy's COVID policies in nursing homes for veterans operated by the state government, aftert the Murphy administration failed to cooperate by providing requested data and information. The Murphy administration adopted an almost identical policy as New York's 25 March 2020 directive.

This entry was retroactively added to the timeline on 28 July 2021.