12 July 2022: Editorial - Why Is Kathy Hochul Reneging on Her Promised Probe into Cuomo’s Nursing Home Scandal?

Why is Kathy Hochul reneging on her promised probe into Cuomo’s nursing home scandal?

The editors of the New York Post are calling for replacement NY governor Kathy Hochul to make good on her pledge to probe Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. We're going to present the full editorial because of how well it dovetails with what we've covered and analyzed in the timeline:

Why is Gov. Hochul reneging on her months-old pledge to get to the bottom of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s care-home scandals? Where is the promised probe?

At the behest of hospital lobbyists early in the pandemic, Cuomo’s Health Department ordered nursing and adult-care homes to admit COVID-positive patients that hospitals wanted to dump. More than 9,000 wound up being pushed in, and statistical analysis suggests that led to hundreds if not thousands of added deaths.

Team Cuomo not only refused to take responsibility for care-home deaths, it actively covered up the true numbers and bent state laws to keep key facts hidden. It even withheld data from the feds.

Among other things, letting the truth out would have quashed Cuomo’s $5 million book deal monetizing his pandemic “leadership,” which suggests the coverup crosses the line for a corruption case even under the high bar the Supreme Court has set for such charges — if anyone properly investigates.

At the same time, per a new report, Cuomo & Co. “successfully coerced” the ethics review “with very minimal due diligence” of his book deal. The gov’s loyalists at the now-replaced state “ethics” panel even covered up that report, though inquiries from The Post led to it being posted by the new Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government’s website Friday afternoon.

Perhaps other lingering Cuomo loyalists have somehow stalled the care-home probe. Or maybe Hochul fears she’ll be tainted by Cuomo’s wrongdoing, perhaps because she didn’t immediately fire Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, who’s at the heart of the horror.

Whatever the reason, whomever she’s protecting, it’s an outrage. New Yorkers who lost loved ones want answers, and the gov promised to get them. She needs to follow through, no matter who looks bad in the end.

We think the Post's editors need to think bigger in terms of who benefits from Hochul's leadership failure to follow through her pledge to establish an independent investigation of Cuomo's pandemic-related scandals. The list of people who either gained unfair benefits for testing and medical treatment or participated in enabling Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive includes state judges and legislators.

For example, that bigger list includes people like the Cuomo-appointed New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who just announced her resignation on 11 July 2022. She was a participant in Cuomo's special priority COVID testing program in 2020 when COVID tests were in such exceptionally short supply they were being rationed. Cuomo violated the public's interests by making sure his political friends and family members could get special treatment at a time when almost no-one in the public could.

The even bigger problem includes hundreds of lower-level state government officials who participated in Cuomo's "pay-for-play"-like pandemic privilege schemes or who played roles in implementing Cuomo's disastrous pandemic policies.

By and large, making these people face up to what they did to enable Andrew M. Cuomo's worst pandemic scandals through subjecting their actions to an independent probe means imposing major damage on her own political party. We think the desire to avoid that outcome is what has motivated Hochul's decisions to not take steps to keep her promise.