28 July 2021: New Jersey's Murphy Administration Under DOJ Probe for COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Feds end probe of nursing home deaths in 3 states, but N.J. remains under investigation

Something unusual and unexpected is happening with the Biden DOJ's civil probe of excess COVID deaths in New Jersey's nursing homes. Unlike its decision to look the other way at excess COVID deaths in state-run nursing homes in New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, it is continuing to investigate state run nursing homes for veterans in New Jersey:

In a letter on Friday to Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, a ranking Republican on the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, officials said they would not proceed with civil investigations in Pennsylvania, Michigan or New York.

But the letter, signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joe Gaeta, said an investigation in New Jersey at the state-operated veterans homes at Paramus and Menlo Park under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, or CRIPA, had already begun and would continue.

That investigation was launched in October after the Justice Department requested information regarding the spread of COVID in the three state-operated nursing homes.

The department had raised specific questions over whether the number of deaths in the veterans homes had been understated. There were also concerns over whether states violated federal law by ordering nursing homes to accept residents who had been treated for COVID-19 in a hospital.

“We must ensure they are adequately cared for with dignity and respect and not unnecessarily put at risk,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Eric Dreiband wrote at the time in sending out the fact-finding letters to the four states.

But rather than provide all the data requested, New Jersey reportedly provided incomplete answers and referred federal investigators to the state’s website, federal officials said. The response sparked an investigation by U.S. Attorney in New Jersey and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — not only into whether deaths at Menlo Park and Paramus had not been reported, but also over a “concern that the quality of medical care at these nursing homes has been deficient,” according to a letter sent to the state....

According to internal emails provided under a public records request, the veterans homes were hit with a long list of documents that administrators were asked to produce, including information related to facility inspections, infection control measures, data on reportable events, cost reports and Medicare billing.

The second-to-last paragraph presented in this excerpt indicates the Murphy administration failed to satisfactorily address requests for information from both the Trump DOJ in 2020 and the Biden DOJ in 2021, which has raised red flags of potential misconduct by state officials.