20 November 2021: COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals Witnesses Clammed Up After Cuomo Quit

Lawmaker: Assembly report on Cuomo includes 'things that made my jaw drop'

This report indicates the NY Assembly Judiciary Committee's report on its impeachment probe findings will be made public before Thanksgiving. It also captures the reaction of a Republican party member state lawmaker, which we're featuring in the following excerpt (sort of a match set with the reaction of a Democratic party member state lawmaker to the report we featured yesterday).

Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh, R-Ballston, said the report includes sections examining allegations of sexual misconduct; Cuomo's controversial book deal; the former administration's handling of data on nursing home COVID-19 deaths; and a potential structural flaw covered up during the building of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.

The sexual harassment section includes "a couple things that made my jaw drop," Walsh said. The nursing home section did not go far enough for Walsh, who said that might have been because "after the governor resigned, any cooperation ended."

"It does provide some new information and new corroboration," she said. "This information will be helpful to the investigations that are ongoing."

Let's take a moment to focus on the nursing home section and consider why the reported cooperation of witnesses ended when Andrew M. Cuomo's chose to resign in disgrace rather than face impeachment.

We suspect the cooperation ended because after Cuomo's resignation, the witnesses to the Cuomo administration's nursing home deaths scandals would no longer be able to trade their testimony under oath against members of the Cuomo administration for any kind of immunity from prosecution. That's important because many of these individuals were also participants in the scandals, both from enforcing the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive that forced nursing homes to admit COVID patients being dumped out of hospitals to free up their bed space and its acknowledged cover-up of the full extent of COVID deaths among New York nursing homes that resulted.

That's not to say they might not resume their cooperation should either state or federal criminal charges be brought against Cuomo. Until that might happen, the witness would have the incentive to remain silent to limit their own legal liability for their participation in Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

Getting back to the timing of when the Assembly's 45-46 page impeachment probe report might become public, it could be as early as Monday, 22 November 2021, since the article indicates the final two of Assembly's Judiciary committee members will review it today (Saturday, 20 November 2021). Whether it will depends on what has to happen first before it is made public.