23 December 2023: Probe of Top Cuomo Aide's Statements after U.S. House Testimony

House to probe potential coronavirus ‘lies’ by ex-Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa

Melissa DeRosa, the former top aide to resigned-in-disgrace NY Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, will be subject to an investigation by congressional investigators following statements she made about the former governor's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. Those statements apparently did not align with those given by former NY Health Commissioner Howard Zucker's closed-door testimony last week. The disparity is what is prompting the probe.

The House of Representatives is gearing up to probe “potential lies and discrepancies” by a one-time top aide to former Gov. Cuomo regarding her involvement in the state’s deadly directive to nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive residents.

The March 2020 order potentially caused 1,000 additional nursing home deaths, according to an analysis by The Empire Center.

During a transcribed hearing behind closed doors this week in Washington D.C., former Cuomo Health Commissioner Howard Zucker told members of the bipartisan House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that Cuomo’s then-Secretary Melissa DeRosa signed off on Cuomo’s COVID-19 policies.

“During his transcribed interview yesterday, former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Howard Zucker, testified that former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, played a ‘critical’ role in drafting and implementing the state’s must-admit order,” a committee spokesman told The Post.

“This accusation directly contradicts Ms. DeRosa’s recent letter to the Select Subcommittee where she claimed she does not have any responsive documents nor subject matter expertise to contribute to the Select Subcommittee’s investigation,” the spokesman added. “The Select Subcommittee looks forward to asking Ms. DeRosa about any potential lies and discrepancies during her transcribed interview.”

This entry was added to the timeline on 25 December 2023.

16 December 2023: Howard Zucker to Testify in U.S. House on Cuomo's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

Howard Zucker to testify on New York’s disastrous COVID response in front of House committee

One of the key officials behind Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive will be giving testimony behind closed doors on Monday, 18 December 2023. Here's an excerpt from the New York Post's report:

Former state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker will be hauled in front of Congress next week to answer questions about the state’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Zucker will sit Monday for a closed-door, transcribed interview with members of the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

As former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s health czar, Zucker was responsible for a March 2020 order which forced Empire State nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive residents returning from hospitals.

Zucker also forbade nursing homes from testing the returning residents for the virus.

The virus was especially deadly for the elderly, and the order potentially caused 1,000 additional nursing-home deaths, according to an analysis from The Empire Center, a conservative-leaning think tank.

Since resigning as New York Commissioner of Health, Zucker has since joined the Centers for Disease Control as a Biden administration political appointee.

14 December 2023: U.S. House Panel Seeks Testimony from Top NY State Officials on Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

House panel pushes to interview Cuomo and staff about pandemic

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee is finally getting around to compelling testimony under oath related to Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. Here is an excerpt from the Albany Times Union's Brendon Lyons report:

A congressional subcommittee probing New York’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic — and the deaths of more than 15,000 nursing home residents — is continuing its efforts to interview former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and top officials who served in his administration.

U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York City sent a letter to former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa this week requesting for a second time that she appear before their panel on Jan. 19.

The subcommittee sent an initial letter to DeRosa on Dec. 1, requesting her testimony and any records she has about the Cuomo administration’s controversial March 2020 directive to New York’s nursing homes to allow residents afflicted with COVID-19 to remain in or return to those facilities, even if they were being discharged from hospitals while still testing positive for the virus....

The subcommittee’s letter cited excerpts from DeRosa’s recently published memoir, “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis.” In the book — which focuses largely on the Cuomo administration’s handling of the pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that led to his August 2021 resignation — DeRosa wrote she was the “the most senior member of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s team leading the nation through a once-in-a-century pandemic, making life-or-death decisions, projecting our administration’s competence to an admiring world.”

“You publicly discussed and defended the Cuomo administration’s nursing home order — arguing that it was consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines,” the letter from Wenstrup and Malliotakis states. “Of course, despite your statements, the order was not consistent with federal guidance. … You owe answers to the thousands of families who lost loved ones in New York nursing homes.”

The article indicates the panel is also seeking testimony from former NY Health Commissioner Howard Zucker and the resigned-in-disgrace former NY governor Andrew M. Cuomo, whose deadly 25 March 2020 directive led to his administration's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

This entry was added to the timeline on 16 December 2023.

24 November 2023: Former Assistant Sues Cuomo for Sexual Harassment

Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo sued for sexual assault by former executive assistant Brittany Commisso

Brittany Commisso has finally filed a civil lawsuit against resigned-in-disgrace New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo. The following excerpt describes what the allegations are and explains why the former executive assistant is taking legal action now.

Disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo is being sued for sexual assault by his former executive assistant Brittany Commisso, according to a legal summons filed just before the deadline for the Adult Survivors Act, The Post learned Friday.

Commisso alleges that while she worked in the Executive Chamber as an executive assistant from 2019 through August 2021 her ex-boss subjected her to “humiliating and demeaning tasks, hugs, kisses, sexual touching of the buttocks and forcible touching of the breast.”

The divorced mom of one, who joined the then-governor’s team in 2017, has previously accused Cuomo, 65, of groping her inside the Executive Mansion — an allegation that led to a misdemeanor criminal complaint being filed against the former governor.

She said Cuomo began a campaign of retaliation against her starting on Dec. 7, 2020 the day she rejected his attempt “to engage in sexual acts,” the summons filed in Albany Supreme Court on Wednesday alleges.

The claimed retaliation includes allegations of a 'virtual' demotion, loss of overtime, and ostracization from other employees of New York's executive office.

Like all legal matters involving Andrew M. Cuomo, it's reasonable to expect the case to move at a glacial pace through New York's state courts.

21 November 2023: Interview with Melissa DeRosa on Andrew Cuomo's NY COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

Top Cuomo Aide Melissa DeRosa Gives Unvarnished Take On Nursing Home Deaths, AG Letitia James' Probe

Forbes Newsroom's Brittany Lewis interviewed former Secretary to New York Governor Melissa DeRosa on the topics of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly nursing home deaths scandals and the sexual harassment allegations that successfully drove Cuomo to resign in disgrace. Here's the video interview, the bulk of the content related to nursing homes takes place between the 8:00 and the 18:00 minute marks:

There's really nothing new in her comments, which should be taken as part of Andrew M. Cuomo's ongoing campaign to exonerate himself from any criminal and civil wrongdoing that resulted from his deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

She does make a concerted effort to try to muddy the waters between policies enacted in 11 states and those of New York in pushing her claim the COVID nursing home deaths scandals were politically motivated, however it remains that only New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan's policies have been recognized as forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients being discharged from hospitals without testing to verify if they were still contagious. A fifth state, California, also maintained such a policy, but was quickly eliminated within a matter of days after recognizing the risk associated with it. Of all these states, only New Jersey followed New York's direct example in crafting its own version of Cuomo's deadly directive.

This entry was added to the timeline on 24 November 2023.

27 October 2023: Cuomo Acknowledges Motive for Dumping COVID Patients Into Nursing Homes

Bill Maher confronts Cuomo on nursing home scandal, ex-NY gov calls questions 'Monday morning quarterbacking'

Andrew M. Cuomo, the resigned-in-disgrace former governor of New York, finally acknowledged the motive behind his deadly 25 March 2020 directive, which forced nursing homes in New York to accept COVID patients being discharged from hospitals without testing to verify if they might still be contagious. The following excerpt presents a discussion that occurred between HBO Real Time host Bill Maher and Cuomo on the topic on 27 October 2023.

During Friday's "Overtime" segment on YouTube, Maher read a viewer question posed to Cuomo asking whether he would have done anything differently during COVID.

"So you allowed people who had been in the hospital – older people, from a nursing home, now they go to the hospital to go back into the nursing home without testing them," Maher said. "ProPublica says you were the only state to do it without testing them when they went back into the nursing home. And that's what caused the death in the nursing homes. Is that true?

"No, the short answer is no." Cuomo responded. "First, this is Monday morning quarterbacking by which I could make the New York Jets champion, right, if we're gonna do this. When COVID started, it was – all of the disinformation was amazing, right? It was coming from China, wet market, zootrophic virus, it was going to California and the state of Washington so we banned travel to China, from China. It turned out that China had already spread it to Europe. All the European flights were coming to New York, JFK. So it had been here for months and it was astronomical. When we first found out about it… they were projecting we would need 150,000 hospital beds to deal with the number of infected, we only had 50,000 in the entire state of New York."

"You did it to free up beds," Maher said.

"We were afraid of losing hospital beds," Cuomo said, "but people who were in hospitals who were considered medically stable, who were tested, were sent to nursing homes if the nursing home said they could treat that person in a way that protects the other people in the nursing home. And that was a way to make sure we had enough hospital beds.

Here's a video excerpt of the interview:

The full interview also covers the sexual harassment allegations that were used to successfully force Cuomo to give up his powerful position as New York's state governor. That portion of the interview has drawn greater attention in the media.

This entry was entered into the timeline on 24 November 2023.

26 October 2023: NCPR Interview with Melissa DeRosa

Former Cuomo aide talks NY COVID response, thoughts on Hochul in new memoir

North Country Public Radio's Karen DeWitt interviewed Melissa DeRosa, the former Secretary to the Governor of the State of New York, who served under the resigned-in-disgrace Andrew M. Cuomo while he governed the state. In that role, she was among the most powerful officials within New York's state government and was the first official within that administration to acknowledge its attempted cover-up of the excess nursing home deaths that resulted from Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

In this interview, which came in connection with the promotion of her recent book, she goes a bit farther in acknowledging the devastating impact of that policy. Here's what NCPR calls a "lightly edited" portion of the transcript:

KAREN DeWITT: You present a defense of the March 25, 2020 nursing home policy. It became kind of an infamous decision to allow hospitalized COVID-positive nursing home residents to go back into the nursing homes. And you also talked about the report by Attorney General Tish James that said you undercounted the deaths by 50%. You present a defense of that, but I wonder, in retrospect, do you think that if you and the governor had maybe just apologized for that decision, instead of kind of doubling down on it, maybe it would have played out differently politically?

MELISSA DeROSA: I don't mean to try to present a defense of it in the book. My intention was to try to explain it to people: what it was, what happened, what was going on around us. I think that, particularly as it related to nursing homes, and the weaponization and the politicization of what happened around nursing homes, combined with the very real pain of the families who lost loved ones, it just became this political football that it never should have been. And looking back, if I knew then what I knew today, I would do a lot of things differently. But my heart goes out to people who lost loved ones in nursing homes. As I write in the book, you know, every decision that was being made was done with the best possible intent with the information that we had at the time.

As as a reminder, the decision was to force patients known to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to be accepted into nursing homes, where the portion of the state's population known to be the most vulnerable to dying from a COVID-19 lived, including many that had no confirmed or suspected cases at the time the decision was made, in order to free up bed space at New York's hospitals.

Not only was that policy was immediately flagged for its disastrous potential when it was announced and implemented, Governor Cuomo's own statements in the days preceding it confirm that both he and his adminstration knew it was virtually guaranteed to have disastrous consequences.

This entry was added to the timeline on 28 October 2023.

19 October 2023: Lessons from a 20-20 Hindsight View of 2020's Coronavirus Pandemic

This timeline entry was added on 21 October 2023. It discusses analysis produced by the Empire Center's Bill Hammond in August 2023 that helps explain why Cuomo's policy choices proved to be unnecessarily disastrous. It was originally featured at Political Calculations.

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How different would New York City's experience during the first wave of 2020's coronavirus pandemic have been if public officials had better and more timely information about how many people were really being infected by it?

That's a fascinating question raised by the Empire Center's Bill Hammond's retrospective analysis of the pandemic's impact in New York. In that analysis, Hammond features a chart comparing the information public officials had on the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's improved estimates of how extensive coronavirus infections likely were in reality in early 2020. Here's a slightly modified* interactive version of the chart:

Compared with the official count produced by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) in early 2020, COVID-19 infections were much more numerous and peaked much earlier in the IHME's improved estimates Hammond describes what the chart shows:

As seen in Figure 1, the state’s outbreak likely began by early February, a full month before its first laboratory-confirmed case [2]. The estimated number of infections soared to more than 60,000 per day on March 19, which was six times higher and three weeks earlier than shown by the state’s testing data.

A second attempt to model the first wave of New York’s pandemic estimated that it began on Jan. 19 and reached a peak infection rate of almost 100,000 per day on March 24 [3]. These estimates indicate that the curve had already begun to bend – that is, the rate of increase had begun to slow – before Cuomo issued his stay-at-home order effective March 22 – likely because individuals and businesses were spontaneously limiting their activities in reaction to official warnings and news coverage.

Hammond explains how better knowledge of the true picture for the spread of COVID-19 infections could have shaped the response of both New York's governor and the state's public health officials:

The virus’s rapid spread in February and early March of 2020 shows the importance of detecting outbreaks early and responding quickly. If officials had become aware of this surge even a week or two sooner – and notified the public – they almost certainly could have avoided swamping hospitals and saved thousands of lives.

If they had merely known when the wave reached its peak, they might have avoided mistakes in late March.

For example, Cuomo and his administration would have had less cause to worry about a looming shortage of hospital capacity. They could have avoided spending time and money to build emergency hospital facilities that went largely unused. And they might never have issued the March 25 directive transferring Covid-positive patients into nursing homes – a decision that likely added to the high death rate in those facilities and contributed to Cuomo’s political downfall. [6]

Here's an example of the official data and modeled projections they did have in early 2020. The following chart is taken from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)'s 25 March 2020 projections showing its estimates of the minimum, likely, and maximum number of additional hospital beds that would be needed in the state of New York to care for the model's expected surge of coronavirus patients.

This chart presents just one of several coronavirus models whose projections were being combined and presented to Governor Cuomo by consultants from McKinsey & Co. to assist their ad hoc public health policy making. Had New York state government officials instead known the daily number of new COVID-19 infections had already passed its peak, they almost certainly would not have reached the point of panic they did. Panic that resulted in their creating one of the worse public health outcomes in U.S. history.

Unlike those now mostly-former New York state officials, the IHME is at least learning from its mistakes in modeling 2020's coronavirus pandemic.

Previously on Political Calculations

• Governor Cuomo and the Coronavirus Models
• Coronavirus Deaths and Nursing Home Admission Policies
• The Biggest Math Story of 2020
• Visualizing ICL's Pandemic Model's Failures

References

Hammond, Bill. Behind the Curve: The Extreme Severity of New York City's First Pandemic Wave. Empire Center. [PDF Document]. 30 August 2023.

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. COVID-19 estimate downloads. March 25, 2020. [ZIP folder]. Accessed 15 October 2023.

Footnotes from Behind the Curve

[2] https://www.healthdata.org/covid/data-downloads.

[3] David García-García et al., “Identification of the first COVID-19 infections in the US using a retrospective analysis (REMEDID),” Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, Vol. 42, August 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1877584522000405#fig0001.

[6] For more on the Cuomo administration’s handling of the pandemic in nursing homes, see the Empire Center’s August 2021 report, “ ‘Like Fire Through Dry Grass’: Documenting the Cuomo Administration’s Cover-up of a Nursing Home Nightmare.” https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/like-fire-through-dry-grass/

Other Notes

* We altered the dimensions of the chart and the line thickness for the IHME estimate of infections. We also added the options for downloading a copy of the chart and sharing it on social media.

17 October 2023: Cuomo Legal Probe Cost to NY Taxpayers at $20 Million and Rising

Taxpayers on hook for at least $20M from Cuomo investigations

Multiple federal, state, and local criminal and civil investigations into resigned-in-disgrace former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals, book deal, and the sexual harassment allegations that were used to force him from office have cost New York taxpayers over $20 million. But how much more than $20 million remains to be answered because the legal bills are still rising.

Here's the introduction from Brendan J. Lyons' coverage in the Albany Times-Union:

The myriad state and federal investigations of Andrew M. Cuomo and his administration have cost taxpayers at least $20 million in legal fees — expenses that continue to mount as the former governor defends himself in two sexual harassment lawsuits as well as an ongoing court battle over his lucrative deal to publish a book about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The article also provides the following information related to Cuomo's cost of defending himself from criminal charges stemming from Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals, which are a consequence of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive:

Cuomo's legal expenses began to mount in March 2021 when the then-governor hired the white-collar law firm Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello to represent his administration in a now-dormant investigation by the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office that examined, in part, the actions of Cuomo’s coronavirus task force in its handling of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic. Cuomo hired the firm a month after the Times Union reported the administration was the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

That probe, which focused on the work of some of the senior members of the governor’s task force, resulted in no charges. The Morvillo Abramowitz firm has been paid more than $2.5 million for its work, which included responding to the Justice Department’s investigation that had also examined whether Cuomo’s administration had given false information about the number of nursing home deaths tied to COVID-19 in what critics charged was an attempt to buttress his book deal.

We'll interject at this point to note the responsibility for the U.S. Department of Justice's decision to not press criminal charges against Cuomo lies with the Biden administration. Cuomo is a close friend and political ally of President Biden. The administration's strange choice to let Cuomo escape facing any federal criminal charges in 2021 was an early indication of how it would approach criminal allegations against those closely linked to President Biden.

The next part of the article recaps Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals, including his administration's attempted cover-up of the excess deaths that resulted:

Nearly three weeks after the governor’s task force was announced in 2020, the state health department issued an order directing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to admit residents who were being discharged from hospitals even if they were still testing positive for the infectious disease, as long as the facilities were able to care for them properly.

That directive, which was rescinded less than two months later, became the focus of a firestorm of criticism directed at Cuomo’s administration, including allegations that the order — which the governor said was based on federal guidance — had contributed to the high number of fatalities of nursing home residents in New York. That assertion was largely dismissed in a July 2020 report released by the state Department of Health, which asserted the spread in those facilities was the result of infected staff members.

In January 2021, the office of Attorney General Letitia James issued a scathing report that concluded his administration’s directives may have increased the risk of COVID-19 infections at congregate facilities such as nursing homes. The report found the administration had deliberately delayed reporting that thousands of additional nursing home residents died at hospitals after being infected in their residential facilities.

Cuomo later stopped short of apologizing for his administration’s handling of the fatality data, though he conceded they had created a “void” by not providing the accurate information requested by state lawmakers. His office said some of the blame for that stonewalling was due to what they claimed was a politically motivated civil inquiry by the Justice Department.

Through 17 October 2023, Cuomo has failed to apologize for his nursing home deaths scandals.

Perhaps the greater shame however belongs to New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who declined to prosecute Cuomo under New York state law in any of Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals. Or for that matter, the sexual harassment allegations she raised.

16 October 2023: Continuing Probes Into Cuomo's Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

Q&A: Ron Kim’s latest update on nursing home deaths investigation

NY Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) has been almost alone in pursuing consequences for the aftermath of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and the impact it had on nursing homes throughout the state of New York. In this interview with City & State's Austin C. Jefferson, he gave the following answers to questions about the U.S. House's probe of the excess deaths that resulted and of his own probe into them:

What did you think of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic signaling that it might subpoena former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the nursing home deaths?

There has to be accountability. I’ve always said that. Resignation doesn’t equal accountability, and executive leaders that made unilateral decisions, regardless of whether it was with the best intent or not. If the outcome was bad and especially when it involves something unique like this that is linked to a multimillion-dollar book deal and a motive to hide, he shouldn’t have pulled data and information from lawmakers and the public. We need to shed as much light (as possible) so we don’t repeat the same mistake in the future.

Speaking of shedding more light, how is your investigation into the nursing home deaths progressing?

Yeah, we’re fully working with the subcommittee at the federal level. I know that they’ve already had a hearing on the COVID response, and I think they’ll continue to investigate this matter. I’m looking forward to the new administration fulfilling their word that there will be a thorough investigation.

I look forward to making sure that they can produce an independent report and our new chair of the Health Committee is also committed to doing a thorough investigative hearing as well, and that’s something that I’m brokering as we speak with the families and the new chair of the Health Committee to see what we can do going into the new session and providing more transparency into what happened.

What do you think that report might say?

We want to get as much of the unbiased, independent input centered around the families and the workers on the ground that saw the truth. None of the hearings really reflected on what really happened on the ground versus what we heard through the skewed data that we received in the back end.

I think once we do a thorough report, we will see the disconnect in terms of what was reported and the narrative that they tried to control versus what we saw on the ground, which is a total neglect of the most vulnerable population at a time when everyone should have been hands-on in protecting and figuring out a solution to isolate and giving these individuals and giving their families the option to take them home.

Oh, and none of them were properly administered during that period. I think the report will indicate a system that sorely lacks the public administrative capacity to take care of older adults in emergency times, and it will call for a rebuilding of public ability to take care of our most vulnerable population.

This entry for the timeline was posted on 21 October 2023.

10 October 2023: House COVID Panel Threatens to Subpoena Cuomo Over Nursing Homes Scandals

House COVID panel threatens Cuomo subpoena for nursing home scandal records

There's finally some progress in the U.S. Congress among members of the House of Representatives seeking to probe the resigned-in-disgrace former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and attempted cover-up of the extent of deaths that resulted, to name just two of Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is weighing a subpoena of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo if he snubs their final request for records about his decision to place COVID-infected patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities at the onset of the outbreak.

Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) threatened in a Tuesday letter to “evaluate” compulsory measures if Cuomo failed to produce documents about his administration’s COVID policies by Oct. 17, according to a copy of the missive exclusively obtained by The Post.

“To date, we have not received a single document from you. The Select Subcommittee is comprised of physicians from both sides of the aisle and members who take our responsibilities seriously,” Wenstrup wrote to the former governor.

“Contrary to your and your spokesman’s unfortunate statements, this investigation is the result of your clearly medically misguided decision to expose New York’s most vulnerable to COVID-19 by issuing the ‘must admit’ orders, which had predic[t]able but deadly consequences for 15,000 nursing home residents,” he added.

“Any attempt to cover up the truth and conceal culpability is not acceptable to the American people. The Select Subcommittee is committed to a transparent investigation and expects you to be forthcoming during this process.”

Cuomo's not the only governor who is being asked to provide these records to the House committee:

Similar records requests were also sent to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose responses are now being evaluated by the select subcommittee, according to a spokeswoman.

In our view, subpoenas to compel testimony are necessary. They may need to be directed to more former New York State officials than Andrew M. Cuomo.

2 October 2023: Judge Drops Cuomo Aides DeRosa, Azzopardi from Trooper's Sex Harassment Lawsuit

Judge drops top Cuomo aides from trooper's sex harassment case

The federal judge hearing the sexual harassment lawsuit of female "Trooper 1" against the resigned-in-disgrace former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has acted to remove Cuomo aides Melissa DeRosa and Richard Azzopardi from the lawsuit. Here's an excerpt of Brandon J. Lyons coverage in the Albany Times-Union:

A federal judge has dismissed two of Andrew M. Cuomo’s top former aides as defendants in a lawsuit filed by a State Police investigator who accused the former governor of sexually harassment and inappropriate touching while she was assigned to his protective detail.

Former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Richard Azzopardi, a former senior advisor who remains a spokesman for Cuomo, were accused in the lawsuit of aiding and abetting Cuomo’s alleged misconduct and retaliating against the female trooper.

U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall said she will issue a written order in the coming days explaining her decision to dismiss the investigator's claims against the former aides.

It is one of two federal lawsuits filed against Cuomo in connection with his alleged misconduct with 11 women, including several former aides, that was outlined in a state attorney general’s report released in August 2021. Cuomo announced his resignation a week later, but has since disputed the allegations and, while acknowledging he did things that were not appropriate, contends he did not sexually harass anyone.

The accusations by the trooper — identified in the attorney general’s report as “Trooper 1” — were among the most damaging leveled against Cuomo, who had encouraged a senior investigator on his protective detail to offer the now-32-year-old female investigator a job on the special unit that protects the governor. Three years ago, when pressed about the governor’s role in getting the trooper on his detail after meeting her at an event in New York City, Cuomo denied having any role in her transfer.

The last paragraph illustrates Cuomo's strange legal defense. He acknowledges behavior that was "not appropriate," but denies any of his inappropriate conduct is sexual harassment.

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Programming note: We've been tied up with a handful of projects behind the scenes during the past several months, which is why we haven't been on top of developments in news related to the aftermath of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and the sexual harassment charges that were used as an excuse to remove him from office.

Fortunately, that news coverage has been sparse, so we haven't missed all that much. What we have missed, we'll backfill in the timeline. Like this story, which occurred on 2 October 2023. Following our established practice for playing catchup with any coverage we previously missed, we'll identify when these entries were added to the timeline.

This entry was added to the timeline on 8 October 2023.

24 September 2023: Op-Ed - Cuomo Health Commissioner "Dr. Howard Zucker Should Not Be at the CDC"

Why did Biden hire N.Y.’s COVID doc? Dr. Howard Zucker should not be at the CDC

Peter and Daniel Arbeeny, whose father died of COVID in a New York nursing home during the period Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect are shocked that former New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, who participated in developing and implementing the fatally-flawed policy, has been hired by the CDC. They voice their shock and dismay in a letter to President Biden in this New York Daily News op-ed. Here's he text of their letter in full:

Dear President Biden,

Our family was shocked to learn that your administration appointed Dr. Howard Zucker to a high-ranking position at the CDC. This was a huge mistake. In his previous job as New York State health commissioner, Zucker played a direct and willing role in many of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s most disastrous and corrupt actions during the pandemic. He should be fighting to keep his license to practice medicine. Instead he was elevated to represent the CDC on a world stage.

We write this as proud lifelong Democrats who lost a loved one who contracted COVID in a New York City nursing home in March of 2020. Our father, Norman Arbeeny, was admitted to the nursing home for reasons unrelated to COVID. Less than 24 hours after our family took him home, he became sick. He passed away just before his COVID-19 test came back positive.

Because he died at home, his death was never included in the nursing home death toll. We have been outspoken critics of former Gov. Cuomo and his administration for their lies and cover-ups. We are also suing the former Cuomo administration in an effort to hold accountable all the people who made decisions without the public’s best interest in mind.

In her first interview as the new CDC director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, said she is refocusing the agency on more transparency. We agree that “trust” is the foundation of the hard work the agency faces as it moves forward. It is no secret that missteps were made and that we can learn from them. However, we need to draw a clear line between missteps and deliberate actions that were meant to hide the truth and deceive the public. Let us explain:

In early 2020, New York nursing homes were wholly unprepared to accept COVID-positive patients, let alone thousands of them. Knowing this, the CDC released a report on March 18, 2020, cautioning nursing homes to take steps to avoid the spread of COVID given its “substantial morbidity and mortality.” Yet on March 25, the state Health Department issued an order requiring nursing homes to accept COVID-infected patients being discharged from hospitals. More than 9,000 such transfers were completed over the next six weeks — which undeniably contributed to the 15,000-plus deaths of long-term care residents in the pandemic’s first year.

Instead of acknowledging his mistake, Zucker chose to aid and abet Cuomo’s efforts to mislead the public. His agency published a politicized report on July 6, 2020, which gave a death toll of 6,432 when the real count was closer to 12,000. It also falsely claimed that the March 25 order had not contributed to that total.

In a March 2022 audit of the Health Department, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli concluded: “The public was misled at the highest levels of State government and given a distorted version of reality that suppressed facts when they deserved the truth.”

That shamefully politicized DOH report is still on the state’s website, and most of its lies have not been removed or corrected.

California Congressman Ami Bera — an M.D. with public health experience — spoke for many at a public hearing: “For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would take a COVID-positive patient and put them in a nursing home,” Bera said. “That’s medical malpractice.”

Bill Hammond of the Empire Center authored an August 2023 report revealing that “of lives lost — New York’s response was not merely sub-par or below average, but among the least effective in the world.”

The facts clearly demonstrate that Zucker repeatedly chose to support falsehoods propagated by the former administration rather than prioritize the lives of New Yorkers he vowed to protect. Zucker claimed he was following CDC guidelines when allowing hospital-discharged COVID-positive patients into nursing homes without testing. Far from acknowledging his mistakes, Zucker has doubled down and said he would do it all again.

Since trust and transparency are the hallmark of new leadership at the CDC, we respectfully request that you launch an investigation into Zucker’s actions — and share the findings with the public. This would go a long way toward rebuilding the country’s faith. As you clearly know, a loss of public trust bankrupts good governance and statesmanship. How can we provide genuine solutions if we cannot come to a mutual understanding of the truth? After Zucker’s demonstrably false statements and reports, there is little justification for him to continue practicing medicine. Howard Zucker must be held fully accountable for his extensive misdeeds, which have left New Yorkers sicker, poorer, and prematurely deceased.

We opted to present the full text of the letter because it provides a sound overview of Andrew M. Cuomo's ongoing COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

This entry was added to the timeline on 8 October 2023.

7 September 2023: DOJ: New Jersey Failed Veterans in State-run Nursing Homes During COVID Pandemic

Justice Department: New Jersey failed veterans in state-run homes during pandemic

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a report slamming the state government of New Jersey's response to the COVID pandemic in the nursing homes for veterans it ran under the administration of Governor Phil Murphy. Here's an excerpt from Misty Severi's report in the Washington Examiner:

The Justice Department condemned New Jersey's handling of veterans at state-operated homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming the state was not prepared to handle the health crisis in a new 43-page report published Thursday.

The department said two veteran homes in particular had problems with communication and a lack of competency in the staff, which resulted in the virus running "virtually unchecked" throughout facilities in Menlo Park and Paramus. The failures in operations are said to have resulted in the deaths of 200 residents.

“Those who served to protect this nation and their families are entitled to appropriate care when they reside at a veterans’ home,” U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said in a statement.

“The Paramus and Menlo Park veterans’ homes fail to provide the care required by the U.S. Constitution and subject their residents to unacceptable conditions, including inadequate infection control and deficient medical care. These conditions must swiftly be addressed to ensure that our veterans and their families at these facilities receive the care they so richly deserve.”

The report also found that even after the Department of Veterans Affairs arrived in New Jersey to help in April 2020, the state Veterans Affairs office failed to implement the recommendations that would reform infection control. The state admitted its failures and negligence in a $53 million settlement in 2021, but Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) has not commented on the new report.

Here's the conclusion to the report itself:

The Department has reasonable cause to believe that New Jersey violates the constitutional rights of the residents of its Veterans Memorial Homes at Menlo Park and Paramus by failing to implement infection control protocols and failing to provide adequate medical care. We look forward to working cooperatively with the State to reach agreement on the remedies for these violations.

We are obligated to advise you that forty-nine days after issuance of this report, the Attorney General may initiate a lawsuit under CRIPA to correct the deficiencies identified in this report if State officials have not satisfactorily addressed our concerns. 42 U.S.C. § 1997b(a)(1). The Attorney General may also move to intervene in related private suits fifteen days after issuance of this report. 42 U.S.C. § 1997c(b)(1)(A). Please also note that this report is a public document. It will be posted on the Civil Rights Division’s website.

In short, the DOJ indicates the state of New Jersey has seven weeks to correct what it finds are continuing deficiences at the state government-run nursing homes for veterans, or else it will sue them. In doing that, the DOJ is forgoing pursuing any criminal charges of negligence, manslaughter, or homicide against New Jersey state officials or employees whose misconduct contributed to hundreds of excess COVID deaths at the two state government-run veterans homes the DOJ itself acknowledges in its report.

In addition to the deadly mismanagement of the state government-run veterans homes during the COVID pandemic Murphy's administration essentially carbon-copied Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. President Biden's DOJ has likewise declined to pursue any criminal charges against New Jersey officials who participated in implementing Murphy's version of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

This entry was added to the timeline on 8 October 2023.

4 August 2023: NY Representative Calls for Removal of Cuomo COVID Health Director Howard Zucker

Stefanik urges CDC to fire former Cuomo official who oversaw COVID-19 nursing home scandal

Howard Zucker served as Andrew M. Cuomo's Health Director during the COVID pandemic. As such, he played an instrumental part in both the implementation of Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and the Cuomo administration's attempted cover-up of the extent of COVID deaths that resulted from it.

Believe it or not, the Biden administration approved the hiring of the ethically-compromised Zucker by the Centers for Disease Control, which prompted Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to demand is removal from employment at the CDC. Here's an excerpt from the Washington Examiner's Misty Severi's report:

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday to fire a former New York State health commissioner who oversaw the state's deadly COVID-19 nursing home policy.

Howard Zucker, who currently works as the CDC's deputy director for global health, previously worked as the state health commissioner for former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the pandemic, but he was forced to resign amid accusations that the administration lied about how many seniors died in nursing homes from COVID-19.

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday to fire a former New York State health commissioner who oversaw the state's deadly COVID-19 nursing home policy.

Howard Zucker, who currently works as the CDC's deputy director for global health, previously worked as the state health commissioner for former New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the pandemic, but he was forced to resign amid accusations that the administration lied about how many seniors died in nursing homes from COVID-19....

Zucker began his post at the CDC in January 2023, approximately a year and a half after his resignation in New York. During the height of the pandemic, Zucker implemented a policy that saw seniors in nursing homes across the state return to those homes after being hospitalized and treated for COVID-19.

President Biden has sought to place a number of individuals who were participants in large state-level scandals into positions of authority within his administration. Given that is a recurring behavior on the part of President Biden, he is sending a clear signal he doesn't care about their victims.

Stefanik isn't the only member of the House of Representatives to cry foul:

"Howard Zucker’s reckless, cruel, and inhumane decision-making during the pandemic caused the death of thousands of New Yorkers in nursing homes," Rep. Nick Lalota (R-NY) said. "Zucker should be in a courtroom answering for his actions, not employed by the CDC where he can cause more harm. President Biden should give an ounce of justice to New York families and protect all Americans and fire him immediately."

Under President Biden, the Department of Justice has become routinely mired in a series of scandals in which prosecutors have worked to diminish criminal charges against close affiliates of President Biden or individuals who are politically aligned with the administration. Unless those practices change, we think the DOJ will not be able to be counted upon to obtain justice for the victims of Biden's political friends.

This entry was added to the timeline on 8 October 2023.

3 May 2023: Cuomo's Lawyers Subpoena Women Who Allege They Were Sexually Harassed by Cuomo

Women who accused Cuomo of harassment being subpoenaed to testify

After month's of little visible activity, Andrew M. Cuomo's legal team is seeking to compel a number of women who allege they were sexually harassed by Cuomo while he served as New York's state governor to testify. The action comes in connection with a civil lawsuit filed by a female state trooper against Cuomo. Here are the lead paragraphs from this report:

Multiple women who accused Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment or other misconduct are being subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit filed by a State Police investigator who alleges the former governor kissed her on the cheek and made inappropriate comments to her when she was working on his security detail.

The pending depositions would enable the former governor’s attorneys, who have publicly assailed what they said were inconsistencies in some of the women’s accounts, to ask Cuomo’s accusers questions about their allegations while they are under oath and being videotaped. The 11 women — including the trooper — who leveled accusations against Cuomo were interviewed by representatives of the state attorney general’s office as part of an investigation in 2021 that resulted in a report that sustained their allegations and found he had sexually harassed or acted inappropriately while cultivating a toxic work environment.

The women are being drawn into the trooper’s lawsuit, in part, because the federal complaint recounts the details of their allegations in the attorney general’s report.

The women’s interviews with the attorney general’s investigators two years ago were also under oath and compelled by subpoenas. Cuomo resigned in the wake of the attorney general’s report. He has maintained he did nothing wrong, denied many of the allegations but also “deeply apologized” for his conduct when he resigned, saying “there are 11 women who I truly offended.”

The next excerpt summarizes the claims being advanced by the state trooper in the civil case:

The State Police investigator’s lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, lists allegations against Cuomo and his administration that largely mirror those outlined in the report issued by the attorney general’s office.

The trooper alleges the governor had kissed her on the cheek and touched her back and stomach — while she was on duty — in a manner that she found inappropriate. Cuomo has said he didn’t recall doing that but that he believed the trooper’s account.

“I didn’t do it consciously. I did not mean any sexual connotation,” he said two years ago. “I just wasn’t thinking. It was totally thoughtless… but it was also insensitive.”

The accusations by the trooper were among the most damaging leveled against Cuomo, who had urged a senior investigator on his protective detail to offer the female investigator a job on the special unit that protects the governor, according to the attorney general’s report.

The report said the investigator, who was a uniformed trooper at the time she alleges the former governor acted inappropriately, had described Cuomo as “creepy” and “flirtatious.”

There's more creepy, flirtatious stuff in the report. Click through to Brendan Lyons' article in the Times Union to find out more, if you must!

27 April 2023: Cuomo Sues Ethics Commission Reviewing Book Deal

Cuomo sues ethics commission reviewing book deal

The resigned-in-disgrace former governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, emerged from his hibernation to engage in litigation against New York's new ethics commission. Here's an excerpt from this report:

As he faces still-ongoing ethics investigations into his $5 million book deal about his COVID-19 pandemic response, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now suing New York’s newest ethics commission, arguing the body is too independent from the governor to be constitutional.

The Democrat’s lawsuit comes ahead of the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Governments’ scheduled meeting on June 12, when it is expected to scrutinize the deal and allegations that the Democrat had staff members work on the book while on government time. Cuomo’s lawyers have maintained staff members worked on the book on their own time.

Because it's been several months, here's some background into the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Governments, which goes by the catchy acronym "COELIG":

COELIG was created last year to replace the much-maligned Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which was created in 2011 by then-Gov. Cuomo as an independent body to combat corruption. JCOPE originally approved the book deal in 2020, but it revoked its approval following Cuomo’s resignation, arguing Cuomo misled the ethics panel during its approval. Cuomo ultimately resigned in August 2021 following the release of a report by the state Attorney General’s office detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Cuomo denies the allegations.

JCOPE repeatedly sought to force Cuomo to turn over the $5 million he received for the book deal, but a judge ultimately ruled last year Cuomo could keep the book advance. Now, the new ethics commission is picking up where JCOPE left off.

The lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court Tuesday in Albany argues the commission created last year violates the state’s Constitution, because it has, “sweeping executive law-enforcement powers, including the authority to impose penalties, and yet utterly insulates the agency from any oversight by or accountability to the executive branch.”

Cuomo's legal argument boils down to a claim that an amendment to New York's state constitution is needed for the commission to have the powers granted to it by the state legislature and signed by New York's replacement governor.

Note: This article was added to the timeline on 3 May 2023. We're playing catch-up after another action by Cuomo's legal team caught our attention....

21 April 2023: New York COVID Death Toll 21% Higher During 2020 Than Cuomo Reported

Beyond Cuomo’s deceptions: New York’s true COVID death toll

This New York Post editorial summarizes the New York State Department of Health's recent finding for the true count of COVID deaths in the state during 2020:

New state Health Department figures on COVID deaths show that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s leadership was even deadlier than New Yorkers knew.

The new stats put the pandemic’s first-year toll at 36,337 — up 21% from what the state had admitted.

The Cuomoites only counted deaths in hospitals, care homes and similar facilities, and that practice continued even after he was hounded from office — until now.

At last, the numbers include death-certificate info to count deaths at home, as the federal Centers for Disease Control and the city Health Department did all along.

The editors continue to succinctly explain why Andrew M. Cuomo chose to cover up the full extent of those deaths by deviating from standard public health monitoring methods:

Why hide the truth? Because it undercut Cuomo’s image as the heroic man-in-charge, a narrative that helped him score a $5.1 million advance for his book “American Crisis” (largely written by staff “volunteering” their time as COVID still raged).

In the wake of his orders forcing care homes to admit contagious patients, Cuomo & Co. also undercounted deaths in those homes, eventually pleading to state legislators that they feared a federal probe by the Trump Justice Department.

None of these issues have been adequately investigated by New York state offiicals or legislators.

8 April 2023: Cuomo Faces Second Lawsuit Over COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Disgraced Gov. Cuomo sued a second time over nursing home COVID deaths

With the speed of molasses in January, the U.S. legal system is getting around to holding the resigned-in-disgrace former Governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, accountable for the outcome of his administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

The following excerpt describes the second lawsuit Cuomo will face from the survivors of the family's whose members were exposed to COVID during the time Cuomo's deadly directive was in effect in early 2020.

Disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo’s “unmitigated greed” and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the “needless” deaths of thousands of elderly New Yorkers, a Nassau man whose mother and father died from the virus claimed in court.

Cuomo, his top aide Melissa DeRosa, and state and health officials also exhibited “deliberate indifference” toward nursing home residents, leading to as many as 15,000 avoidable COVID deaths, Sean Newman claimed in a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court on March 28.

Those deaths include Michael and Dolores Newman, who died weeks apart in early 2020, their son said.

Sean Newman’s dad Michael Newman, 84, died at the Grandell Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Long Beach on March 29 that year, his son said.

His mom Dolores, 78, died two weeks later at the Long Island Living Center in Queens, according to the filing.

Sean Newman is married to Janice Dean, who became a leading advocate for justice for the victims of the Cuomo administration's deadly directive in the months following its implementation by the state government. The lawsuit follows the state government's failure to probe the Cuomo administration's policies' role in contributing to the high COVID death toll at the state's nursing homes in early 2020.

2 April 2023: Three Years Later, No NY Leaders Held Accountable for COVID Deaths Following Deadly Directive

Three years on, NY leaders STILL not held to account for deadly COVID nursing-home order

After many weeks without any news related to New York's COVID nursing home deaths that followed Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) has authored an op-ed decrying the lack of any meaningful probe by the state's political leaders. Here's an excerpt:

Wednesday marks 1,099 days since the Cuomo administration ordered COVID-positive nursing-home patients back into unprepared facilities.

The erasure of this fatal mandate from our state’s pandemic history is one of Albany’s most egregious and nauseating acts.

Families who lost loved ones meet this time of year with anger, frustration, hurt and disappointment. How could they not?

March is a slow-moving month of hell because their nearest and dearest were caught up in New York’s deadliest policy mistake and no one will acknowledge it.

That failure includes the elected leaders of the state legislature. Kim lays out why that's a very big problem:

Our Legislature has not made any serious attempts at accountability for the numerous mistakes in our pandemic response.

We don’t have clarity on how personal-protective-equipment contracts were handled, how testing was procured or who drafted the deadly March 25 order and why.

We could be months away from another pandemic, and I assure you, we are no closer to being ready for the next one.

How scientific information is handled is at the heart of this inquiry.

If our leaders were found to have made decisions based on politics, not science, there must be consequences.

And that's really the answer to the question of why New York's most powerful politicians haven't lifted a finger to probe the disaster of New York's COVID nursing home deaths, isn't it? They don't want to face the consequences. By doing nothing, they're really doing what it takes to make sure they aren't ever held accountable.

14 February 2023: NJ State-Run Nursing Home for Veterans Allowed to Resume Admitting New Patients After COVID Deaths

Admissions resume at NJ veterans home where dozens have died from COVID

This report provides an update to the situation of two nursing homes for veterans that are directly operated by New Jersey's state government. The two veterans homes are notorious for the excessive number of COVID deaths they recorded in early 2020.

Admissions to the state-run Menlo Park veterans home have resumed after improvements were made to control the spread of infections at the facility where dozens have died from COVID-19, state officials said Tuesday.

The development comes two months since federal officials began to withhold payments for new residents after the Murphy administration failed to fix problems outlined in a scathing inspection report last year.

Inspectors over the summer determined that residents were in "immediate jeopardy" of both a life-threatening illness and potential abuse even after the home already had one of the highest COVID death tolls in the nation.

If the Menlo Park veterans home sounds familiar, it's because NJ Governor Phil Murphy implicitly acknowledged no-one in New Jersey's state government is capable of competently running nursing homes:

In December, the Menlo Park CEO was ousted as Gov. Phil Murphy called for a private company to provide management at the home.

Menlo Park and its sister facility in Paramus gained national attention three years ago when more than 200 residents died at the height of the pandemic. Murphy and several legislators called for reforms, including passing new laws to help nursing home residents, but those efforts appeared to have done little at Menlo Park.

The Biden administration's Department of Justice is conducting a criminal probe of COVID deaths at these two New Jersey state government nursing homes for veterans in 2020. There has been no visible indication of that probe's progress for months. The leaders of New Jersey's state legislature have refused to conduct their own probe, citing the DOJ's criminal probe as a justification for not pursuing any investigation.

The report also describes what has been done to improve the care at the veterans home enough to allow it to begin admitting new patients.

The home, which is run by the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, updated "infection control processes, testing protocols, and contact tracing," Major Agneta Murnan, an agency spokeswoman, said in an email. "Staff competency evaluations and education have increased, as well as the frequency of rounds conducted by supervisory staff to ensure the proper use of infection control practices."

The actions that produced these improvements took less than two months to implement. What does that say about how these nursing facilities were being operated under the control of NJ Governor Phil Murphy's administration?

11 February 2023: Cuomo, DeRosa May Face U.S. House Subpoena in COVID Nursing Home Deaths Probe

Andrew Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa could face subpoena in House COVID probe

It has been months since we've had a news article covering a new aspect of Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. This article breaks the story that both Cuomo and his former executive secretary Melissa DeRosa may soon each receive a subpoena to testify about Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and its aftermath before the U.S. Congress. Here's an excerpt:

Disgraced former Gov. Cuomo may be hauled before Congress this year to answer for the state’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his deadly executive order forcing nursing homes to accept infected individuals.

Cuomo, and other top state officials, are currently being scrutinized by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

“It’s quite possible that the committee will subpoena either [former] Gov. Cuomo or his former chief of staff Melissa DeRosa,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican.

Past efforts by the GOP to get answers from top officials in New York were stymied because they were in the minority — something that is no longer the case.

“Now we’re in the majority and now we’re in a position to subpoena,” Malliotakis said, saying she had already raised the Cuomo issue to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky).

Such a probe is long overdue. The big question? Will the New York state legislature ever conduct its own probe of Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals?

27 January 2023: NY State Taxpayers to Pay for Andrew M. Cuomo's Legal Defense in Sex Harassment Lawsuit

In a not-so-shocking development, Andrew M. Cuomo will receive yet another perk New York state officials gift to themselves: New York state taxpayers will pay for the cost of his legal defense related to the civil trial in the sex harassment suit involving "State Trooper #1". Note the very low standard required to receive such a benefit in the excerpt below:

Taxpayers must shoulder the cost of defending former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a state trooper, a judge ruled Friday.

The former three-term Democrat sued New York Attorney General Letitia James in August to overturn her office’s refusal to cover him in a Brooklyn federal lawsuit alleging he made suggestive comments and inappropriately touched a state trooper on her stomach and back.

The former governor claimed the sex harassment accusations were made while he was governor — entitling him to a state-funded defense.

Must be nice to be employed by New York's state government.

21 January 2023: Recap of New Jersey's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandals

There has been almost no news about the various pandemic-era COVID nursing home deaths scandals for weeks. That's not unexpected, since that news is now mostly paced by legal events in courts in both New York and New Jersey which are moving at a near-glacial pace. In that gap, the news organizations covering the scandals have featured "recap" type stories. This article focuses on New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's disaster at state government-run nursing homes for veterans, which we're featuring because it confirms the COVID nursing home deaths are not an old story.

When NJ veterans homes spiraled amid COVID, NorthJersey.com revealed glaring missteps

Here's an excerpt, which focuses on recent developments for this scandal:

COVID-19 devastated nursing homes in New Jersey, but nowhere was the virus more deadly than at two state-run veterans homes in Menlo Park and Paramus, which had more than 200 resident deaths. More than 400 other residents and employees were infected.

Over the initial months of the pandemic in 2020, and then continuing through 2022, deep reporting by NorthJersey.com’s Scott Fallon and Lindy Washburn — based on tips from plugged-in sources that started with an encrypted email from a manager, as well as clues mined by sifting through hundreds of documents obtained through public records requests — revealed why the homes were so devastated.

It culminated in articles that showed how COVID-19 ran rampant through the Paramus home because of poor decisions, lax infection control and an insistence by management that the disease was not at the facilities. Internal emails also showed that managers so adamantly objected to staff wearing protective masks in the pandemic’s first month that they devised penalties with help from Gov. Phil Murphy's office.

Their reporting continued through 2022 as more suits and investigations were launched and Murphy finally moved to privatize the operation of the homes. The anonymous source came forward to say more about the Paramus veterans home out of frustration at what has still not happened since the initial COVID crisis.

An outbreak of coronavirus disease at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus has killed at least 10 residents and likely contributed to the deaths of some 27 more over the past two weeks. To cope, 36 medics from the Army National Guard is deployed.

The National Guard arrived at the Paramus veterans home to help deal with a coronavirus outbreak that has infected 40 and killed 10. Twenty-four other veterans have died since the outbreak began, documents show. “It’s horrible, horrible,” said Mitchell Haber, whose father is a resident. “They’re all sick. They’ve lost almost half their patients.”

The coronavirus has continued to devastate the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus in recent days, killing eight more residents and sending dozens to the hospital. The eight deaths bring the official COVID-19 death toll at the facility to 24.

Make no mistake, the COVID nursing home deaths scandals are still an ongoing event in New Jersey. All these new deaths are attributable to negligent policy decisions made by the Murphy administration, which utterly failed to address the known deficiencies at these homes that were originally exposed in early 2020.