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.