30 May 2022: Cuomo Lawyers Try to Run Out Clock on JCOPE

Cuomo ethics inquiry could die with outgoing commission

New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) has been a toothless watchdog over nearly its entire history. That was by the design of resigned-in-disgrace governor Andrew M. Cuomo and his political cronies. He was very happy with that arrangement. At least, while he was in power and could influence the state's official ethics watchdog's investigations.

That changed after Cuomo chose to quit rather than face being impeached and constitutionally removed from power over the sexual harassment incidents alleged by multiple women. Once he was out of power and his appointed cronies on the commission were replaced by non-loyalists, JCOPE started taking Cuomo's most serious ethical breaches seriously.

But that change didn't suddenly make JCOPE effective. The commission is still hampered by how Cuomo and his corrupt cronies originally structured it, which is a major weakness New York state legislators recognized. Their first step toward creating a more effective means to hold public officials accountable for their misdeeds in office was to replace the commission with a new one, which would be set up with a different structure. One that should make it more difficult for powerful public officials to control by filling its ranks with their loyal supporters through their patronage.

All this is relevant background because that new commission will be seated on 1 July 2022 as JCOPE is decommissioned. That changeover raises questions of what will happen with the lawsuits JCOPE's only recently freed-from-Cuomo's corrupt influence have pursued against Cuomo with respect to his pandemic book deal profits, which he pocketed despite having produced his book utilizing state government resources.

This report considers that JCOPE's lawsuit may go away after the old commission is disbanded, which is a situation Cuomo's lawyers are seeking to exploit to Cuomo's personal advantage. Here's an extended excerpt describing these recent legal developments:

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was supposed to face an ethics hearing last month concerning whether he'd violated the law by using state employees to assist in the production of a book that netted him millions of dollars.

But a presiding officer overseeing the hearing has postponed the date until Sept. 15, according a filing by Cuomo's legal team on Thursday — and by that time, the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics will no longer be in existence, throwing the yearlong investigation's future into question.

In July, the new Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government will replace JCOPE as the result of a deal tucked into this year's budget legislation. It's unclear whether the new body will pick up management of JCOPE's legal actions against Cuomo and attempt to keep the September hearing date in place.

Cuomo attorney Rita Glavin stated in a legal filing Thursday that, because JCOPE is going out of existence, she had made an offer to discontinue Cuomo's own lawsuit — filed in April in state Supreme Court — that alleges the panel's ethics investigation was tainted by prejudicial actions. Because JCOPE is going out of business July 8, Glavin argued, there will be no legal controversy for a court to decide.

But JCOPE would only agree to ending the case if Glavin agreed to drop Cuomo's suit "with prejudice," which would prevent the former governor from refiling the same type of lawsuit against the new ethics body.

"JCOPE’s counsel conveyed to us that JCOPE commissioners were concerned that the governor could sue again if any of the current JCOPE commissioners were to be appointed to" the new ethics body, Glavin wrote on Thursday. Gov. Kathy Hochul's office, however, says the law creating the new panel bars any current JCOPE commissioners from serving on the new body.

The oversight of the ethical conduct of public officials in New York has long been a non-priority for New York's public officials. We'll see what comes of the legal maneuvers, but it's interesting that Andrew M. Cuomo's own lawyers see their best legal path for contesting the ethics charges against Cuomo involves exploiting the dysfunction Cuomo created in the state government.

24 May 2022: Hochul Pledges New Investigation of COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths

Hochul pledges new investigation of COVID-19 nursing home deaths

Since assuming power on 24 August 2021, replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul has done very little to address Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. This report, dated exactly nine months later, indicates Hochul is finally taking her first serious steps toward investigating the systemic and leadership failures that led to the excess COVID deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of New York nursing home residents during the period Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect.

Gov. Kathy Hochul expects to soon launch an independent analysis to examine the state's decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could include what contributed to the thousands of coronavirus deaths attributed to the spread of the disease in nursing homes, she said Tuesday at the Capitol.

Although the governor has previously spoken broadly about a plan to have a state-backed review of the response to the pandemic, particularly from the early days two years ago, Hochul for the first time made it clear her office is compiling a team with that sole purpose.

"It's going to take some time, but I believe that history deserves to have a true record of what happened here," Hochul said from the Red Room in the Capitol following an unrelated bill signing.

Hochul's newly announced policy comes one day after USA Today published its report finding New York's Department of Health failed to substantiate 96% of COVID-era nursing home complaints filed from 1 January 2020 through 14 January 2022. The report confirmed massive, systemic failures within New York's Department of Health related to its oversight of nursing homes that arguably reached all the way to the top of New York's state government while Cuomo was in power.

Those oversight failures are now extending into Hochul's administration, which we think almost certainly forced her hand to finally address the problem. Had she not, she would have risked becoming accountable for the deadly outcome of Cuomo's nursing home deaths scandals.

While continuing to do nothing would serve the political interests of powerful members of her political party, many of whom were complicit in Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals, we think Hochul may now be putting her political interests ahead of theirs. That's because the issue will not go away and because she cannot afford the political cost of being seen as complicit in Cuomo's biggest scandals herself.

Others share skepticism for whether Hochul's announced pledge to investate Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals will go far enough.

Assemblyman Ron T. Kim, D-Queens, has been extremely vocal in calling for a full accounting of what happened in nursing homes and the sources of scores of coronavirus-related deaths. He is pushing for legislation with state Sen. James Tedisco, R-Glenville, that would call for the state to pursue an investigation with subpoena power into the 15,000 nursing home deaths.

Following Hochul's announcement, Kim said that he was both unaware of the plan's details or the timing.

"If this is truly an independent, bipartisan effort to get to the truth, I welcome it," Kim said.

Kim said he is willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt and is open to conversations and the pending analysis.

The bottom line is the action is long overdue. We'll see how it goes.

More Background from the Timeline

• Major Milestones in Governor Cuomo's Nursing Home Deaths Scandals
• Two Year Anniversary of Deadly Directive
• 3 May 2022: Democrats Stalling Probe of Cuomo Nursing Home COVID Deaths
• 7 May 2022: Editorial - Top NY State Lawmakers Blocking Independent Probe of Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths
• 23 May 2022: Cuomo Health Department Passed on Addressing 96% of COVID-Era Nursing Home Complaints

23 May 2022: Cuomo Health Department Passed on Addressing 96% of COVID-Era Nursing Home Complaints

35,600 nursing home complaints flooded NY amid COVID. Here's what happened to each one

This report introduces a new number to describe how badly Andrew M. Cuomo's health department addressed the needs of nursing home patients during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's an excerpt from the article:

More than 35,600 nursing home complaints flooded into New York during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first two years, as people raised concerns of neglect and other safety violations inside the facilities.

But a strikingly high number of the complaint cases, about 96%, had been deemed unsubstantiated or remained unresolved earlier this year, a USA TODAY Network New York investigation found.

State Health Department inspectors determined only about 4% of complaint cases were "substantiated," or violated health and safety standards, according to an analysis of state data obtained via public-records request. The review looked at cases between Jan. 1, 2020 and Jan. 14, 2022.

The findings — which include newly reported details of each complaint filed against hundreds of nursing homes across New York — uncovered a backlog of complaints as COVID-19 ravaged nursing homes, killing more than 15,000 residents.

"About 96%" works out to be approximately 34,176 complaints that the New York Department of Health has failed to substantiate. If equally spread out over 24 months, the 35,700 complaints that were filed would have been paced at about 1,488 complaints per month, or a little under 49 per day.

Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace rather than face being impeached by New York's state legislature on 24 August 2021. His appointed health commissioner, Howard Zucker, was allowed to continue in his job for more than a month afterward. His replacement, Mary Bassett, who was appointed by replacement governor Kathy Hochul on 30 September 2021, wasn't sworn into the job until a week after USA Today's period for investigating complaints ended.

New York's Department of Health was relatively unscathed by replacement governor Hochul's terminations of Cuomo loyalists named in the state attorney general's report on that office's investigation of Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment. With that being the case, it's reasonable to attribute the failure to substantiate 96% of the complaints filed about inadequate care in New York's nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic to Andrew M. Cuomo's failed administration and health department.

19 May 2022: NJ Murphy Administration Faces New Claims Over COVID Deaths in State-Run Veterans Nursing Homes

Taxpayers on hook for more vets home COVID deaths? New claims filed against Murphy admin

New Jersey taxpayers may have to pay out several more millions of dollars in damages over how Governor Phil Murphy and his administration operated nursing homes for veterans in the state during the period Murphy's copycat version of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here's a excerpt from this report:

Lawyers for families of those who died at New Jersey's three veterans homes during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have filed almost 70 more claims against the Murphy administration claiming that negligence led to their loved ones' demise.

The claims, which need to be approved by a judge to move forward, come six months after the Murphy administration agreed to settle 119 similar claims for $53 million.

The Murphy administration has repeatedly said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The new batch of claims are from families of victims who died in the first months of the pandemic at the Paramus, Menlo Park and Vineland veterans facilities, which were among the hardest-hit nursing homes in the U.S.

More than 200 residents and two staff members died from COVID-19, the vast majority of them at the Paramus and Menlo Park homes. There are three separate investigations ongoing into the deaths after reports by NorthJersey.com and other publications about poor planning, questionable decisions and lax infection control at the facilities during the height of the pandemic.

We came across this story while searching out the latest news for those three investigations, one by the federal government, one by the state attorney general, and the third by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation that was launched just a few weeks ago. We found no updates for the U.S. DOJ and state attorney general's investigations, which is a cause for concern because the lawyers conducting these probes have gone months without demonstrating any signs of progress.

15 May 2022: Editorial Reveals Andrew M. Cuomo's Legacy

Editorial: The deadly shame of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home

The editors of the Chicago Tribune didn't set out to describe Andrew M. Cuomo's sad legacy in this 9 May 2022 editorial. But they revealed it all the same as they lamented a preventable tragedy at a southern Illinois nursing home in November 2020. The following excerpt illustrates how:

The home knew that at least two members of staff and two residents had tested positive by Sunday, Nov. 1. The IDVA knew about it but did not have adequate protocols in place. The IDPH knew about it. So, according to the audit, did the state’s first assistant deputy governor for health and human services. But knowing about it and doing something about it clearly was not the same thing.

The home didn’t test the rest of the staff until Nov. 3, 4, and 5, an unconscionable delay. And that was just the process of collection. The tests then had to go to the lab and the results didn’t come back to the home until Nov. 6 and 7, close to a full week after the home knew it had a crisis.

As context, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first antigen test for emergency use on May 9. Abbott Diagnostics Scarborough, Inc’s BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card was authorized for use at the point-of-care under an emergency use authorization that was issued in August 2020. There also is a mention in the report of staff attending a Halloween party, although as with most COVID-19 issues, there is no certainty as to its role in the infection of those residents.

It is, of course, important to see what transpired at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home in the context of the overall situation that fall in downstate Illinois, when cases were increasing rapidly in that part of the state. This was before the vaccine had become widely available, of course. And all of the agencies mentioned in the audit were strapped, stressed and struggling to see the full picture of what was happening around them. It is one thing to look back now with a critical eye and another to live through those circumstances.

Illinois was hardly alone in failing to take care of the vulnerable residents of its nursing homes. Although initially heralded as a pandemic hero on CNN, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo later was accused both of forcing nursing homes to accept COVID-19-positive patients coming out of New York’s hospitals and then obfuscating the data surrounding the deaths of nursing home residents in the state.

That last paragraph says it all. The outcome of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive and his subsequent cover-up of the full extent of COVID nursing home deaths that resulted from it has become a cautionary tale. One used as a point of comparison with similar tragedies to say "this was bad, but it could have been much, much worse".

This editorial shorthand demonstrates what Cuomo's legacy is becoming. For editors, his name is now on par with that of the bogeyman as the representative example for describing the kind of failed government leadership that gets innocent people killed through deliberate negligence.

11 May 2022: Lawmakers Seeking to Cut Off Cuomo's Access to Campaign Fund Millions

Push continues to restrict Cuomo from spending prior campaign money

This report covers an effort by NY state lawmakers to block politicians from being able to spend money they collected for their campaigns for previous elections if they are found guilty of a crime or, more questionably, whether they were investigated by the state attorney general or state legislature committees for breaking laws. Here's an excerpt describing the rationale behind the proposed legislation:

Common Cause NY and ethics-minded lawmakers remain committed to preventing former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other misbehaving elected officials from spending the campaign war chest they amassed while in office.

"This is one instance, unfortunately among many, and it's time to deal with this gap of law," Common Cause NY Executive Director Susan Lerner said Tuesday at the Capitol.

The legislation was first drafted by Assemblyman Phil Steck, D-Colonie, after Cuomo resigned in August amid the threat of impeachment following investigations from the attorney general's office and the Assembly Judiciary Committee. It would cut off access to campaign funds for any elected official who was convicted of a crime or resigned following an investigation conducted by the attorney general or a committee of the Legislature that concluded the official had violated the law.

Steck said he was concerned Cuomo may use the $18 million that remained in his campaign's coffers for "political retribution."

"We hold those funds in trust for a public purpose, which is to communicate ideas to the public when we're running for office," Steck said Tuesday. "So it's not something that we should be able to use for whatever purpose we see fit."

While it would be viable to block politicians convicted of crimes from being able to access or spend money collected for their political campaigns, we're afraid doing that for politicians who were only investigated by state officials or lawmakers would not pass constitutional muster.

If NY lawmakers were serious about this kind of reform, all politicians should be subject to repaying all campaign funds to their donors if not spent within a three-month period on election-related expenses after the election for which it was collected. The only debate should be over which donors would be repaid and how much they would be repaid, where we would suggest "All" and "in proportion to what they donated" as the answers to those questions.

9 May 2022: Ethics Commission Hits Back at Cuomo

Ethics commission hits back at Cuomo, seeking $5M book repayment

This report indicates New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics is putting the lawyers it hired on 27 April 2022 to work. In addition to defending the commission from the resigned-in-disgrace Andrew M. Cuomo's 1 April 2022 lawsuit, JCOPE's legal team will be taking on the task of compelling Cuomo to give up the $5.2 million he will personally pocket from the publisher of his pandemic "leadership" book because of his use of state government resources to produce it. According to the following excerpt, JCOPE's legal team went on the offense in filing a countersuit against Cuomo on Friday, 6 May 2022:

New York’s ethics oversight commission countersued ex-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo late Friday, filing a court action seeking to force the repayment of $5.1 million in book proceeds paid to the former governor.

In March, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had passed a resolution ordering Cuomo to repay the millions from writing “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” But Cuomo has taken no steps to comply with the JCOPE order to repay the funds to the book's publisher, Penguin Random House.

In the counterclaims on Friday, attorneys representing the commission asked that Cuomo be forced to repay the funds, and for an injunction barring Cuomo from disbursing the millions in the meantime.

JCOPE's aggressive response has also included notifying Cuomo's attorneys of a plan to depose Cuomo on June 22.

The counterclaims come in response to a lawsuit Cuomo filed in early April. In state Supreme Court, his attorneys had argued that JCOPE had violated his constitutional due process rights. They sought to block JCOPE from going forward with an ongoing ethics investigation into whether Cuomo misused government resources to produce the 2020 book.

Since JCOPE will be replaced by a new ethics commission in July, we anticipate Cuomo's personal legal team will attempt to stall any effort to depose the otherwise unemployed Andrew M. Cuomo before that occurs.

7 May 2022: Editorial - Top NY State Lawmakers Blocking Independent Probe of Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Dirty rotten Albany scoundrels block nursing-home probe

The New York Post's editors speak real truth to power in pointing to the complicity of top state legislature officials in Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) and Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady) accuse the Democrats who control both chambers of the Legislature of stalling their bill to create a five-member commission with subpoena power and a mandate to probe whatever policies contributed to “any increase in death rates of nursing home residents attributable to COVID-19.”

Tedisco believes the Dems are covering up Cuomo and for their roles in granting him broad emergency pandemic powers. Kim, who lost an uncle in a nursing home to COVID, says he keeps hearing excuses and that “we’re trying to move forward.”

He counters by citing the “need for accountability.” That’s what the survivors of every New Yorker lost in a nursing home during the pandemic want. Many finger the Cuomo order forcing homes to accept COVID-positive patients that hospitals wanted to discharge.

What might top legislative Democrats fear from a fair probe? Well, they granted Cuomo vast emergency authority as COVID hit, then took to shelter. Plus, they agreed to stealth passage of a measure giving nursing-home operators and health-care workers qualified immunity from civil and criminal culpability. Nina A. Kohn, an expert in elder law at Yale, told PolitiFact that law gave “a green light for facilities to understaff and underresource.”

New York needs the whole truth. If Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins keep blocking the bill, any legislator who doesn’t revolt is a part of the coverup.

The second-to-last paragraph we've excerpted above drives home a point we've argued for some time. It took the work of a lot of state government officials, both elected and appointed, to implement and enforce Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive that forced nursing homes to blindly admit COVID patients being dumped out of NY hospitals into nursing homes without confirmation their coronavirus infections were no longer contagious. The New York Post's editorial is the first we've seen connecting the dots to the top elected lawmakers in New York's Senate and Assembly.

6 May 2022: New Lawsuits Over NJ Nursing Home COVID Deaths Claim 'State-Created Danger'

New lawsuits over nursing home COVID deaths claim ‘state-created danger’

New Jersey is starting to accumulate its share of lawsuits filed against nursing homes for COVID deaths during the period Governor Phil Murphy's copycat version of New York's Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here's an excerpt from the report:

The families of two women who died after catching COVID in the private nursing homes where they lived have sued state officials, saying the state ignored repeated warnings in the pandemic’s first weeks that its controversial approach to containing COVID in long-term care facilities would be deadly.

The lawsuits come nearly five months after the state agreed to pay almost $53 million to settle claims it botched its response to the COVID outbreak in state-run veterans’ homes.

The new lawsuits — filed late last month in federal court — accuse Gov. Phil Murphy and Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli of violating nursing home residents’ civil rights and creating dangerous conditions in homes through policies they implemented under Murphy’s executive order 103.

“Through the directive, the nursing homes were thrown under the bus,” attorney Michael S. Kasanoff wrote in one complaint.

That complaint criticizes state officials for requiring facilities to admit people who tested positive, refusing to require hospitals to test “medically stable” patients they transferred to nursing homes, and failing to adequately distribute face masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment in long-term care facilities in the pandemic’s early days.

Those policies fueled the virus’ spread, the complaints charge.

Officials also ignored providers’ pleas that they didn’t have enough resources to isolate sick residents or otherwise protect residents and staff as directed, the complaints say.

Murphy and Persichilli are liable under the “state-created danger doctrine,” Kasanoff wrote. That legal doctrine enables citizens to pursue remedies when the government — responsible for protecting the public — instead takes actions that endanger it.

For us, the most surprising part of this story is that New Jersey has a specific legal doctrine that comes into play whenever state officials endangers the public through their actions or negligence. That's not something that comes into existence in either a vacuum or after a single episode, which means state government officials must have established quite a track record to require it.

5 May 2022: Nursing Homes Sued for COVID Deaths in Every County of New York State

Down to Business: Lawsuits against nursing homes alleging wrongful deaths due to COVID pile up

The legal aftermath of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive is building according to this report, which focuses on Albany County, New York. Here's the introduction and conclusion to the report:

Add another handful of lawsuits to the tally of cases brought against nursing homes in New York alleging the wrongful death of a resident from COVID-19.

By one estimate, every county in the state has seen such a filing; in state Supreme Court in Albany County, five came in over the past two weeks. All allege violations of infection-control protocols in the early days of the pandemic and claim negligence by the nursing homes in not meeting their statutory duty of ensuring residents’ overall wellbeing.

As of this week, the state Department of Health reported more than 15,400 COVID-19 nursing home deaths in New York since March 2020, either confirmed or presumed at a home, or confirmed at another facility, such as a hospital....

The latest lawsuits in Albany County paint a chaotic picture at two nursing homes where infected staff and residents comingled with the healthy, and families were not immediately notified of residents’ symptoms after exposure.

Three of the five lawsuits seek $2 million each in punitive damages.

In between, the report captures the response of the nursing home industry from having the immunity to legal liability for COVID deaths gifted to them by Andrew M. Cuomo on 2 April 2020 stripped away by New York's legislature.

Stephen Hanse, president and chief executive of two Albany-based state groups serving the industry, doesn’t mince words about the lawsuits, calling them “unconscionable.”

While it’s human nature to want to place blame, he says, the lawsuits are being filed by “opportunistic attorneys seeking to take advantage,” of an “unprecedented health care crisis.” Hanse himself is a lawyer.

He recalls that at the outset of the pandemic, everyone was dealing with an unknown virus. There was little information on transmission; no testing or vaccines; and gloves, gowns and masks were in short supply.

New York adopted a “hospital-centric approach” to grappling with the virus under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hanse says. That put nursing homes toward the end of the line for equipment and supplies when, “the real focus of government should have been on nursing homes,” he said in an interview this week. “We care for the most vulnerable,” he added.

While health care providers and institutions received a measure of immunity in emergency legislation at the start of the pandemic for mistakes in caring for COVID-19 patients, that protection was repealed a year ago – which is one of the reasons the wrongful death lawsuits are now appearing on court dockets.

Hanse characterizes the repeal as “purely political,” a response by lawmakers emboldened by a “perceived weakness” in Cuomo from fallout from previously underreported deaths.

TLDR: The lawyer heading the political lobby for the nursing home industry in New York says the state government acting under Andrew M. Cuomo's policies contributed to excess COVID deaths in nursing homes, which the nursing home industry shouldn't be held legally liable for.

We'll see how well that argument holds up in all the courts where it will be made.

3 May 2022: Democrats Stalling Probe of Cuomo Nursing Home COVID Deaths

Democrats stalling probe of Cuomo nursing home COVID deaths, sponsors say

This report covers the claims of the bipartisan sponsors of a bill in New York's state legislature that would establish an independent commission to investigate excess COVID deaths in nursing homes throughout the state during the period Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here's an excerpt describing the central claim:

Bipartisan legislation to investigate the impact of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic policies on the nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 is being bottled up in committee so leading lawmakers won’t be implicated in the scandal, sponsors of the measures told The Post on Monday.

“There’s no question in my mind that they want to hold this up,” said state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady).

“I think it touches on them. And it touches on what they’ve done so far.”...

Tedisco also suggested that delaying his bill was a bid to cover up for Cuomo, who resigned under threat of impeachment last year over allegations of sexual harassment.

“They wanted to get rid of him because he was a liability but I’m not sure they also want to let everybody know the extent of the things that he was involved with that caused this loss of life — the lies, the distortions,” he said.

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), who’s sponsoring a companion bill, said high-ranking Democrats were “just coming up with excuse after excuse.”

“At different times, they are giving me excuses about ‘Oh, there’s federal investigations, we can’t open this up until the federal investigation is complete.'”

But Kim, whose uncle died in a nursing home of suspected COVID-19, said he remained hopeful the measures would win approval before the scheduled June 2 end of the legislative session.

“This is not a big ask. We are just asking to go back and investigate,” he said.

The Democratic Party majority that holds power across all of New York's state government has done very little to investigate the roles that any of its members, including resigned-in-disgrace former governor Andrew M. Cuomo, had in contributing to excess COVID deaths in the state's nursing homes.

We anticipate that role is considerable, because the implementation of deadly 25 March 2020 directive required the knowing consent of dozens, if not hundreds, of officials within the state government and legislature, most of whom are members of the state Democratic party. It's reasonable to conclude they believe such an independent probe would not serve their political interests of retaining their hold on political power in the state.

1 May 2022: New Criminal Probe Launched Into COVID Deaths in NJ Veterans Homes

Another investigation launched into the over 200 COVID deaths in NJ veterans homes

This report was originally posted on 28 April 2022. A new probe has been opened into what happened in New Jersey's state government-run veterans homes (a.k.a nursing homes for U.S. military veterans), making it the third such active criminal investigation. Here's the introduction to the report:

A third investigation into the deaths of more than 200 residents of New Jersey's veterans homes during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic has been opened by an independent state agency that reports on government malfeasance, a state commissioner revealed this week.

The State Commission of Investigation is looking into how the outbreak at the Paramus, Menlo Park and Vineland homes became one of the nation's worst COVID-related nursing home disasters, Military and Veterans Affairs Commissioner Lisa Hou told a legislative panel on Tuesday.

The commission joins probes by the state Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice.

“None of them have been completed as of yet," Hou, a brigadier general, said under questioning from the Senate budget committee. "We’ve provided and complied with everything they asked for. I am also looking forward to the results of those.”

That's now one federal investigation and two state investigations. There have been no updates on either the U.S. DOJ's probe since October 2021 and longer for the NJ state attorney general's investigation.

29 April 2022: Son of Nursing Home COVID Victim Sues Cuomo, DeRosa For Wrongful Death

Son of nursing home COVID victim sues Cuomo, DeRosa for wrongful death

This report from 28 April 2022 indicates New York's resigned-in-disgrace former governor, Andrew M. Cuomo has a new lawsuit to face, the first to directly challenge his deadly 25 March 2020 directive in contributing to excess COVID deaths in New York's nursing homes. The lawsuit also names former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. Here's an excerpt:

A man whose Korean War veteran father died after catching COVID-19 in a Brooklyn nursing home has filed a class action wrongful death suit against disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his former top aide Melissa DeRosa.

Daniel Arbeeny, 59, an outspoken critic of Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, claims his dad contracted the coronavirus and died because of a New York state directive that nursing homes admit COVID-19 patients. The order was implemented in March 2020 by the state health department.

“This policy of mandatory admission, non-testing and comingling of nursing home residents constituted reckless endangerment by all of the Defendants,” according to the suit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

In a phone interview with The Post, Arbeeny said the suit — which also names the state and ex-Health Department boss Howard Zucker as defendants — was about holding state officials to account. It’s also an effort to get justice for the families who had relatives die in nursing homes....

Arbeeny, a New York native who lives in Cobble Hill, pointed to the fact that a British court ruled this week that the UK’s nursing home policy, which was similar to the Empire State’s, was illegal.

“Cuomo knew what he was doing,” Arbeeny told The Post. “Wrongful death is wrongful death, whether it’s the state or not. It’s wrong. The government needs to make amends for this.”

Cuomo's PR team responded:

In a statement, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the order had no effect on COVID outbreaks in nursing homes.

“For all the emotion and politics generated around this issue, the facts are that both the AG and the Assembly critically examined this and concluded that the DOH March order had nothing to do with introducing COVID in nursing homes — also, as previously stated, Ms. DeRosa has nothing to do with this directive,” Azzopardi said in an email.

“We expect any fair hearing in a court of law will also bear this out,” he added.

On 16 June 2021, a New York State Bar Association task force determined Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive did contribute to excess COVID deaths in New York nursing homes. Here's more background on that topic from the timeline:

• 18 February 2021: Nonpartisan Think Tank Says Cuomo's Deadly Directive Killed Over 1,000
• 19 February 2021: Inside the Numbers - How Many COVID Nursing Home Deaths Are Attributable to Cuomo's Deadly Directive?
• 16 June 2021: NYS Bar Association: Cuomo Directive Contributed to COVID Nursing Home Deaths
• 18 June 2021: Inside the NYS Bar Association Task Force's Report
• 19 June 2021: Deeper Inside the NYS Bar Association Task Force's Report
• 18 August 2021: Empire Center Releases Report "Like Fire Through Dry Grass"
• 15 March 2022: NY State Comptroller Confirms Cuomo's Cover-Up of COVID Nursing Home Deaths

28 April 2022: NY Senate Committee Proposes Independent Commission to Probe COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Proposed bill would independently investigate 15,000 COVID-19 nursing home deaths

This report covers developments in the New York's state senate's health committee to create an independent commission to investigate the COVID nursing home deaths that occurred during the period Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. What's most interesting is that the bill is the result of a bipartisan political effort. Here's an excerpt:

The proposed bill comes over two years after the Cuomo administration placed COVID-positive patients into nursing homes — a decision that was not reversed until weeks later.

The investigation, which was gained the support of both Republicans and Democrats, would investigate the fact that the state undercounted the number of nursing home deaths. It would also look into an audit from the State’s Comptroller’s office that claimed the New York State Department of Public Health was unprepared to respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

“These are real people, real families who lost their lives during this tragedy,” Republican Assemblymember Philip Palmesano said. “I think it’s definitely necessary given the fact that we lost 15,000 seniors during the COVID crisis. I believe families deserve answers, accountability and transparency.”

There's quite a lot that would need to happen before the proposed commission might be established. The next step for the proposed bill will be consideration by the NY Senate Finance Committee. If approved, it will proceed to be voted upon by the full NY State Senate. After that, it would need to be voted upon and approved by the NY State Assembly before it might be sent to replacement Governor Kathy Hochul to be signed into law.

27 April 2022: High Court Rules Government Dumping COVID Patients from Hospitals to Nursing Homes Without Testing "Unlawful" and "Irrational"

Government broke law discharging care home residents from hospital untested during Covid, High Court rules

This report comes from the United Kingdom, where that nation's High Court has ruled that government's practice paralleling Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, in which COVID patients were dumped from hospitals into nursing homes without testing to verify if they were still infectious to free up hospital bed space, was both "unlawful" and "irrational". Here's the introduction to the story:

Boris Johnson’s Government broke the law by failing to protect more than 20,000 care home residents who died from Covid-19 during the pandemic, the High Court has ruled.

The policy of discharging patients from hospital to care homes at the start of the pandemic was “unlawful” and “irrational”, the court said.

Presiding judges Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham said the Government’s policy was “unlawful” because they failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of Covid-19.

They added that despite there being “growing awareness” of the risk of asymptomatic transmission throughout March 2020, there was no evidence that then Health Secretary Matt Hancock addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.

The judges suggested the guidance should have required patients to isolate from other patients for two weeks to avoid Covid spreading within the homes and added that these issues were not addressed until a further document in mid-April 2020.

“The common law claim succeeds against the Secretary of State and Public Health England in respect of both the 17 March and 2 April 2020 documents to this extent: the policy set out in each document was irrational in failing to advise that where an asymptomatic patient, other than one who had tested negative, was admitted to a care home, he or she should, so far as practicable, be kept apart from other residents for 14 days,” they concluded.

The ruling opens the floodgates for the families of COVID victims who died in U.K. nursing homes to sue the government for damages resulting from its reckless negligence. In the U.S., the governors of four states, New York's Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey's Phil Murphy, Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, and Pennsylvania's Thomas Wolf implemented and sustained similar policies during the same period the British government did. A fifth governor, California's Gavin Newsom, also implemented a similar scheme at that time, but suspended it after just a few days so it was not sustained as it was in the other four states.

27 April 2022: JCOPE Hires Lawyers to Fight Lawsuit Over Cuomo Pandemic Book Deal Profits

Ethics watchdog taps outside firm to fight Andrew Cuomo over book deal profits

New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) has hired a law firm to represent it in a lawsuit involving its efforts to force Andrew M. Cuomo to give up the $5.2 million he pocketed for his pandemic "leadership" book deal, which was produced using state government resources.

The embattled public integrity commission — criticized for allowing disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to make millions off a book deal during the deadly COVID-19 outbreak — has retained the global firm Hogan Lovells to defend it in a lawsuit filed by Cuomo earlier this month.

Cuomo claims the ethics watchdog acted with “extraordinary bias” against him by trying to force him to return the profits after initially approving the $5.2 million contract for “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

JCOPE has an existing $300,000 contract with Hogan Lovells.

The firm has been awarded more than $50 million in state government contracts since 2009, including helping CUNY clean up a spending scandal with its research foundation and providing legal services to SUNY’s hospitals and representing the state Assembly.

JCOPE was forced to turn to outside counsel because state Attorney General Letitia James, whose office typically defends state agencies in litigation, declined to represent the commission, citing a conflict, sources said.

Like many of JCOPE's actions, this one is overdue. JCOPE will be replaced by a new ethics commission in July 2022, the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (CELG), which raises the question of how the various legal actions JCOPE is pursuing might proceed when that happens.

24 April 2022: Mostly All Quiet on the Cuomo Front

It's not your imagination. There really hasn't been much notable news to document about Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals in the past week!

That's due to the current nature of the main story, which is now mainly set by the pace of legal developments. Sure, Cuomo sometimes makes noise in public on his own, but as we've argued, he is almost certainly doing so in order to tap the funds in his campaign organization's bank accounts for the purpose of influencing the potential juror pools in the various criminal and civil litigations he still faces and to pay his legal and public relations bills aimed at that purpose. Although the latest developments in the Cuomo's ongling self-inflicted saga falls outside the focus of the timeline's usual coverage, here are links to recent opinion pieces and editorials for reference, starting with Cuomo's own op-ed on unrelated topics that appeared in the New York Daily News during the past week:

• 18 April 2022: Andrew Cuomo: There's a Better Way Forward in New York State (New York Daily News)
• 19 April 2022: Andrew Cuomo can’t stop spinning self-serving lies (New York Post)
• 20 April 2022: Reject Andrew Cuomo’s brazen revisionism (New York Daily News)
• 20 April 2022: Andrew Cuomo, a man searching for a plan (Politico)

On the plus side, we also haven't had any reason to cover any stories involving Andrew M. Cuomo's brother, the hapless journalism-ethics challenged Chris Cuomo, which by definition represents the bottom story of the day here at the timeline. He's definitely not being missed!

20 April 2022: Cuomo Attorney Wants Retaliation Claims Dropped from NY State Trooper's Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Andrew Cuomo’s lawyer wants 2 retaliation claims tossed from NY state trooper’s sex harassment suit

Andrew M. Cuomo's personal attorney, Rita Glavin, is seeking to have two claims of retaliation against Cuomo dropped from the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a female New York State trooper against Cuomo.

If you recall from the timeline, those claims were earned earlier this year by Cuomo's PR team. This report covers Cuomo's legal team's effort to avoid having to pay a larger price in the upcoming civil litigation.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants a judge to toss two claims in a sexual harassment suit filed against him by a New York state trooper.

Cuomo’s lawyer Rita Glavin says her client couldn’t have retaliated against the trooper because he was not governor when she filed her sexual harassment lawsuit, according to legal papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday.

The trooper sued Cuomo in February, alleging he made unwelcome sexual advances while she was working on his personal security detail. She also accused Cuomo of retaliation against her by threatening “criminal charges against his victims and ethics charges against their attorneys,” and claims Cuomo’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, retaliated against her by calling her suit a “cheap cash extortion.”

Glavin said the two retaliation claims should be tossed because the trooper “does not remotely come close” to proving them.

The trooper’s lawyer Valdi Licul says otherwise.

“The former governor’s proposed motion is baseless. Our discrimination laws protect victims who have the courage to speak out about sexual harassment,” Liculi said.

Liculi’s client, who is only identified as “Trooper 1” in her legal documents, alleges the governor “violated” her multiple times after she was transferred to his security unit in January 2018.

For more background, here's previous coverage from the timeline:

• 3 August 2021: Cuomo Sexual Harassment Victim Number 11
• 8 August 2021: Cuomo's Attorney Admits Victim #11's Allegation of Touching "May" Be True
• 23 December 2021: Cuomo Won’t Be Charged for "Credible, Deeply Troubling" Sexual Harassment of Female State Trooper
• 17 February 2022: First Civil Lawsuit Filed by Alleged Cuomo Sexual Harassment Victim
• 18 February 2022: Andrew M. Cuomo's PR Staff Could Dearly Cost Cuomo in Civil Lawsuit
• 18 March 2022: Cuomo Staffers Try to Escape Being Defendants in Trooper's Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

17 April 2022: Opinion - A Non-Fond Farewell to JCOPE

Seiler: A non-fond farewell to JCOPE

Casey Seiler is the editor of the Albany Times-Union. In the following excerpt from his editorial marking the coming end of New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), he underscores the absence of effective ethics oversight, investigations, and prosecutions among the people serving the bodies that are supposed to be watchdogs for the public's interests:

"Uphill" is, of course, the best adjective to define the future course of New York's battle with public corruption, as evidenced last week by the speedy resignation of Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin. The federal indictment unsealed Tuesday morning describes a quid pro quo scheme so transparent that it could have involved the exchange of two burlap bags each printed with a dollar sign.

After no doubt breathing a sigh of relief at Benjamin's hasty exit, Gov. Kathy Hochul defended herself by noting that he had allegedly lied during the vetting process that ended with his appointment last summer as the next in the line of succession to significant executive power — a gig that has given us two of the last three governors (David Paterson and Hochul), and is therefore rather important.

New Yorkers deserve to know more about whether Hochul's administration robustly questioned Benjamin after his benefactor, real estate baron Gerald Migdol, was indicted in November on felony charges of making fraudulent campaign contributions to the former state senator's campaign for New York City comptroller. As recently as two weeks ago, Hochul was expressing "utmost confidence" in her lieutenant even after the Daily News reported he had failed to let her know he had been subpoenaed in the Migdol matter. Loyalty is a wonderful thing in politics as in life, but her failure to extract as much as a public mea culpa from Benjamin was telling.

The case against Benjamin was brought by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, continuing that office's near-total dominance in the field of state corruption prosecutions. Once again sitting on the sidelines was the Northern District (which hasn't brought a notable or even banal corruption case since its pursuit of Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno in 2009), the Albany County district attorney's office, and JCOPE.

The absence of corruption prosecutions in these places, despite multiple federal convictions involving New York state government officials, is an indication that Albany's top politicos have too much influence and control over the legal system in these jurisdictions.

For his part, Seiler rightfully recognizes the Albany Times-Union's coverage of Albany's continuing series of corruption cases involving state and local government figures. Along with the New York Post, the newspaper has done much to break many of the stories the timeline has featured involving Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals and other ethical failures.

17 April 2022: Editorial - Albany Dems in Ethical Free Fall

Ethically, Democrats in Albany are in free fall

This editorial decrying the repeated ethical failings of the Democratic party majority in Albany appeared in the Watertown Daily Times on 17 April 2022:

How have Democrats in Albany abused the public’s trust? Let me count the ways.

Less than eight months on the job, Brian A. Benjamin resigned last week after being arrested on federal charges of campaign finance fraud. He had a questionable background and should not have been appointed. But Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul ignored the red flags and named him to the post anyway....

Seeing how former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dashed for the exit door under a cloud of scandal, you’d expect Hochul to take necessary precautions while ascending to the top spot. But she and the people surrounding her were careless in their selection process. This was her first major decision as governor, so it reflects very poorly on her record.

This hasn’t been the only blemish that Hochul has displayed. She promised to clean house when she became governor. She also said she would usher in a new era of transparency in the executive branch.

She’s failed on both counts.

For some bizarre reason, Dr. Howard Zucker was allowed to remain state health commissioner for nearly a month after Hochul took over. He should have been the first person she booted. Zucker sat silently by while Cuomo co-opted the state Health Department to conceal data related to the number of nursing home residents who died as a result of COVID-19.

And Hochul permitted James J. Malatras to remain SUNY chancellor for more than three months despite his well-known history of verbally abusing subordinates. Why didn’t she make good on her promise to restore confidence in state government?

Hochul appointed Dr. Mary T. Bassett to succeed Zucker as state health commissioner. She has refused to conduct an internal investigation into why DOH officials and staffers went along with Cuomo’s plan to conceal the truth. How can she expect to improve the agency she now leads when she ignores the ways in which it was corrupted?

Hochul is not the only Democrat to sidestep accountability. While they pressured Cuomo to resign, state legislators refused to carry out impeachment proceedings. This would have brought all the allegations of wrongdoing to light and, if he was convicted, may have prohibited him from seeking elective office again. They chose to sweep everything under the rug.

Indeed they have. For her part, Hochul came into power promising to clean house, but that pledge apparently only applied to members of Andrew M. Cuomo's administration who were named in the state attorney general's report on the disgraced governor's alleged sexual harassment abuses. At this point, she and other officials have utterly dropped the ball for addressing Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals.

From a legal perspective, at what point do elected officials become accessories after the fact when crimes have been committed by their fellow politicians under New York state law?

A Surge of COVID Nursing Home Lawsuits in NY

Nursing Homes Face Growing Number of Lawsuits From Covid-19 Fallout

This report was originally published on 9 April 2022. It describes a "wave" of lawsuits being filed in New York and other states related to COVID nursing home deaths. Here's the background it provides for New York:

Two years after the coronavirus ravaged through nursing homes, families of residents who died from Covid-19 are bringing a wave of negligence and wrongful death lawsuits against the facilities.

The surge of suits, spurred by a repeal of liability protections and statutory deadlines to file the suits, largely accuses nursing homes of failing to properly curb the spread of disease, identify infected residents and treat their illnesses.

New York’s nursing-home industry says much of the devastation wrought by the virus—particularly in the chaotic early days of the pandemic—was beyond its control, citing staffing shortages, inadequate testing supplies, a lack of masks and other personal protective equipment and a controversial state policy requiring facilities to admit residents who tested positive for coronavirus....

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in New York over the past month.

The article also provides more background information related to a bellwether case in Buffalo, NY, which the timeline first featured back on 28 March 2022:

Plaintiffs have notched some early victories that could make the lawsuits costlier to defend. A New York Supreme Court judge in Buffalo last month declined to dismiss a lawsuit against an Erie County nursing home, Humboldt House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, brought by the sister of a 63-year-old resident who died of Covid-19 in April 2020.

The woman died days after New York enacted a health law that gave nursing homes and other healthcare facilities broad immunity from negligence lawsuits related to the pandemic. New York legislators eliminated the shield about a year later, but lawyers for Humboldt House argued in court that the repeal of the liability shield wasn’t retroactive.

The judge disagreed with that interpretation, ruling that the law’s legislative history made clear that the repeal was intended to be retroactive. “We have faith in the judicial process,” said Mario C. Giannettino, an attorney for Humboldt House. He said staff at the facility “risked and sacrificed their lives in a time of international crisis.”

Joseph L. Ciaccio, a New York malpractice attorney representing the administrator of the deceased woman’s estate, said his law firm, Napoli Shkolnik PLLC, has brought 48 lawsuits against nursing homes, filing most of the cases in the past month. Before pursuing litigation, the firm had to procure medical records and wait for the appointment of estate administrators to act as legal representatives on behalf of heirs of the decedent. He also faced a time constraint. In New York, like in many states, the statute of limitations for wrongful death claims is two years from the date of death.

“We’re trying to preserve the claims for our clients before running out of time,” said Mr. Ciaccio.

How many other attorneys like Ciaccio are out there working to get cases filed before the statute of limitations deadline arrives? And if we really want to have people responsible for what happened with COVID at New York's nursing homes held accountable, how many state government officials and agencies will need to be sued?

12 April 2022: Cuomo Sexual Harassment Victims Upset Disgraced NY Governor Escaped Accountability

‘It must be really sad to be him’: Women who spoke out against Cuomo rebuild as he attempts revival

This report appeared in Politico on 11 April 2022. Here's an excerpt to capture the basic story:

Commisso and Charlotte Bennett, another former aide who accused Cuomo of misconduct, spoke to POLITICO in a series of phone interviews in recent weeks — offering their first substantial public comments about their lives since Cuomo left office. Bennett and Commisso are now reimagining their shattered personal and professional lives, as Cuomo attempts to put back together the pieces of his old identity.

They say they’re not scared of him or his network of supporters any more, and that they’ve learned to tune out frenzied speculation about his future. But they say they’re disappointed that many in state politics — even those who affirmed their allegations and pushed for Cuomo’s resignation — have not dismissed the entire notion he could run again.

“I understand he resigned, but that’s not the point,” Commisso said. “The point is, resignation doesn’t bring accountability. It was his choice. If you or I walked up to someone, grabbed them, touched them inappropriately, we would hopefully be held accountable.”

Much of the rest of the article recaps their experiences in advancing their allegation against Cuomo while he held power in New York as the state's governor.

But the article also covers Cuomo's recent activities, where the following passage caught our attention:

Cuomo is using that money to help shape the collective conversation about his downfall — to even question whether reports of his behavior were serious enough to cause a downfall.

That’s a problem, said Jennifer Freyd, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon. Freyd, who founded a nonprofit focused on institutional courage and betrayal, coined the term DARVO, which refers a reaction shown often by individuals accused of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders. DARVO stands for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender” and is what Cuomo — who regularly painted himself an advocate for women and founded the Women’s Equality Party in 2014 — has been doing on a public stage for nearly a year now.

“Every time somebody DARVOs when they’ve got that kind of public platform, it’s not just the individuals involved who get hurt,” she said. “It’s also everybody else who might get scared off from seeking help or telling the truth about what happened to them because they’ve just seen what’s going to happen, which is really bad.”

We were surprised to learn there's an acronym psychologists use to describe how other offenders have behaved after their misconduct was exposed, which fits Andrew M. Cuomo's public conduct since the multiple allegations levied against him began gaining traction in early 2021.

The report doesn't indicate if either Commisso or Bennett might file civil lawsuits against Cuomo.

9 April 2022: The Developing Plan to Replace JCOPE

Read: The plan to replace JCOPE

New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) was designed and operated by Andrew M. Cuomo and his allies in the NY assembly for one basic purpose over the first 10 years of its existence. That purpose was to provide the appearance of addressing corruption among public officials in New York's state government while doing almost nothing to restrict their ability to engage in corrupt acts.

While today's JCOPE's commissioners are trying to correct the decade of permissive abuses their predecessors were all too willing to sign off upon to benefit Cuomo and his cronies, they're still hamstrung by the legal structure that Cuomo and his pals established to ensure it would never be meaningfully effective in holding powerful figures like themselves to account. This report describes how lawmakers are trying to fix the hapless ethics commission by replacing it. Here's an overview of their plan:

Since the Times Union reported last week on the outlines of the plan, good-government groups have repeatedly slammed the fact that leading state politicians will continue to appoint the ethics commissioners. During its 11-year existence, a frequent criticism of JCOPE was that the 14-person panel lacked independence from the politicians it regulated.

But there are also a number of significant, if more incremental, changes to how the new commission would operate. A few highlights:

— Three members of the commission would be nominated by the governor, two by the Senate majority leader, two by the Assembly speaker, one by the Assembly minority leader, one by the Senate minority leader, one by the attorney general and one by the comptroller.

Based on who currently holds those offices, Democratic elected officials would collectively make nine appointments and Republicans only two. For Republicans, that might well raise concerns that the panel could engage in partisan inquiries.

— An “independent review committee” made up of New York law school deans or their designees would have 30 days to confirm or deny the qualifications of the nominees based on factors such as their backgrounds and expertise. The review committee would publish on a website the procedures by which its reviewing the nominees. If a nomination was rejected by the committee, the politician charged with making that appointment would nominate a new person as a commissioner.

— Commissioners will by majority vote determine the panel's chair. That is a change from JCOPE, where that power was conferred on the governor. In another shift, members of the commission can be removed by a majority vote of the other commissioners for “substantial neglect of duty,” misconduct, or a violation of confidentiality restrictions.

— The commission shall meet “at least quarterly.” JCOPE holds meetings at least once a month.

— The executive director of the office will be appointed through a majority vote of the commission, another break from JCOPE, which had complex voting and veto rules for hiring the agency’s top staffer. And the executive director, not the commissioners, will hire the rest of the staff.

— Instead of JCOPE’s “special voting rules,” which allowed a small minority of commissioners to veto an investigation into a politician that appointed them, decisions about whether to proceed with an investigation, or accept staff’s recommendations about another form of action, would be made by a simple majority vote.

Based on what we're reading, these changes are little more than changes in the window dressing that do little to correct the incompetence and ineffectiveness that Cuomo built into the the original JCOPE. New York lawmakers really do need to go the extra mile and amend the state constitution to make the ethics commission an independent body.

Beyond that, rather than appointing members or drawing upon individuals who already serving in bureaucratic positions in state-funded institutions, we would argue it would be much more worthwhile to have the state's ethics commissioners be elected by voters in nonpartisan elections every two years from different geographic regions, or districts, in the state. But that's just the way we think, where we want the public to both have ready access to the state ethics commissioners they might choose and to be able to easily replace them if they think their performance in holding state officials accountable falls short.

Knowing New York politicians however, we see little chance of them wanting to be held accountable for their ethical failures. They'll want to continue having influence over who gets to decide how any ethics case against them is judged. Which is why there are only changes in the state ethics commission's window dressing.

8 April 2022: What Cuomo Missed Deadline to Run as Dem for State Office Says About His Political Future

Five Democrats — but not Cuomo — have filed to run for New York governor

The resigned-in-disgrace former NY governor Andrew M. Cuomo has drawn a lot of speculation as to whether he would spend the $16+ million in his political campaign's bank account on running for statewide office. If he was going to do so as a member of the Democratic party, he had to file to run for state office by the close of business on 7 April 2022. He didn't. The following excerpt from this report covers that development:

At least five Democrats on Thursday submitted the paperwork needed to appear on New York’s gubernatorial primary ballot this June.

One name who didn’t have a filing with the state Board of Elections? Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose potential interest in a comeback campaign a year after he resigned in disgrace has provided grist for the rumor mill for months.

The filings on Thursday were not an absolute guarantee that Cuomo does not run.

If his supporters covertly knocked on tens of thousands of doors in recent weeks and every one of the people they interacted with kept it a secret, then he could still appear on the primary ballot if he put the signatures in a mailbox on Thursday and they arrived at the board by Monday — which is the final deadline. But most observers have thought that the scenario is unlikely.

A spokesperson for Cuomo did not return requests for comment on the former Democratic governor’s plans.

Cuomo could still run as an independent or write-in candidate for the November election, but the rules for ballot access and fundraising are much more stringent than if he ran in the primary. He would have until the end of May to file as an independent candidate.

While the political reporters are still speculating he may run as an independent party or write-in candidate, we think he has no hope of winning a statewide office and he knows it. If he thought he did, he would have filed the necessary paperwork to do so as a Democrat, because that would give him the maximum leverage he needs to call in the political favors he bestowed over the past decade.

But that would only have happened if he thought he could win. He doesn't think he can.

Andrew M. Cuomo's choice to not seek statewide office as the long-standing member of the state's Democratic political party that he is lends support to our main hypothesis about his true ambitions as a man who has access to $16+ million in his political campaign's bank account. We think his true aim is to use that resource to influence the potential pool of jurors who will decide the multiple court cases he faces. Whether related to his alleged sexual harassment episodes or his pandemic book deal, Cuomo's main goal now is to keep what he pocketed.

His real campaign is to present himself as sympathetic victim to benefit his legal defenses. That means means he will periodically meet with pols and will engage in campaign-like activities in ways that spawn speculation about his political future. It's the minimum price he has to pay to use the money that was donated to his political campaign so he could run for elective office in New York before he quit rather than face impeachment.

We think he has no real plan to win any elective office. Insteaad, the evidence indicates he has real plans to spend as much of the money he has stashed in his political campaign organization's bank account as he can with ultimate goal of not having to pay for his legal defenses using any money from his personal bank accounts.

5 April 2022: Hapless Chris Cuomo Quotes Poet in Comparing Himself to a Seed, Exposes His Greed

Fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo posts cryptic message about his future after fan bemoans 'void' he left

It must be time for the bottom story of the day because once again, the journalism ethics-challenged Chris Cuomo has made the news for something stupid he's either said or done. In this case, it's something he's said, as documented in the following excerpt:

Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo sent a cryptic tweet about his future on Tuesday, possibly indicating that he could seek a return to the news industry after he was fired by the liberal network last year.

"The people who tried to bury you did not know you are a seed," Cuomo tweeted in response to a fan declaring there is a void without his coverage.

Cuomo’s tweet was paraphrased from Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, according to the BBC.

Cuomo, whose Twitter bio states that he’s a "free agent," has demanded $125 million in arbitration from CNN for "unlawful termination." He was fired in December following a brief suspension over his extensive involvement in helping his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D., combat sexual misconduct allegations. A subsequent outside probe of Chris Cuomo's actions at CNN revealed a separate sexual misconduct charge against him from his earlier tenure at ABC News.

While he was alive, Christianopoulos made a reputation for refusing prizes and awards for his poetry because he felt they diminished human dignity. Since Chris Cuomo is looking collect an award of $125 million from CNN, it seems he's cherry-picking the most significant lesson of the poet he's quoting to suit his own self interest.

5 April 2022: Cuomo Book Deal Still Under Investigation Despite Suit, AG James Says

Cuomo’s $5M book deal still under investigation despite suit, AG James says

This report reveals the lack of progress that NY state attorney general Letitia James' office is making in probing Andrew M. Cuomo's $5.2 million pandemic "leadership" book deal is drawing attention. The following excerpt describes the main thrust of the report:

State Attorney General Letitia James’ office reaffirmed that it has an active criminal probe into whether Andrew Cuomo illegally used staffers in preparing his lucrative coronavirus pandemic memoir — just days after the disgraced ex-governor sued the government watchdog agency to keep the proceeds.

James launched a probe into the $5.1 million profit-making memoir last April after getting a referral from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who asked her to “investigate the alleged commission of any indictable offense or offenses” related to the book deal.

Her office issued a subpoena to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics last September requesting all records regarding the Cuomo book deal....

A lawyer for one of the witnesses — who requested anonymity — said the AG’s office informed him back in December that the book probe was “completed.”

If that last part is true, the obvious question is why is the state attorney general's office not moving forward on it?

We're not the only ones to whom that question has occurred.

“The conventional wisdom in Albany is she’s doing nothing and the investigation has stalled. But we don’t know,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany.

“If this is an ongoing investigation it’s reasonable to say when it’s going to be closed and what’s the timeframe on this? Especially because she’s been criticized for this being politically motivated against Cuomo.”

Indeed. The leisurely pace of the AG's office in conducting its probe seems far from appropriate and demands explanation.

3 April 2022: Will NJ Governor Murphy Ever Live Up to His Pledge to Prove "Full Accounting" for COVID Nursing Home Deaths?

Two years since veterans home Covid disaster, Murphy's promise of 'full accounting' has gone nowhere

This report was originally published on 28 March 2022. It documents the continuing stonewalling of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's administration to release documents related to COVID nursing home deaths in New Jersey's nursing homes and veterans homes. Here's an excerpt:

Despite repeated promises to conduct an independent investigation and develop a "full accounting" of his administration's handling of the pandemic — and in particular what happened in the veterans homes — Gov. Phil Murphy has not provided any substantive explanation for why so many men and women died in the three nursing homes his administration operates.

In fact, his administration has fought against the release of key veterans home documents for more than a year.

NorthJersey.com sued the Murphy administration last year after it denied a public records request for emails between top officials at the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs over management at the homes during the first wave of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.

After months of legal wrangling and court hearings, the administration turned over 147 pages of documents. Almost all of them were completely redacted.

It was the second time in a year that the Murphy administration blacked out documents NorthJersey.com had sought regarding the veterans homes. The first came in December 2020, when the administration redacted a key email that tied Murphy's office to a controversial policy to discipline nurses and aides who used the Menlo Park home's supply of protective masks without permission.

"Overall, when it comes to anything relating to COVID or other public health issues, the Murphy administration has been super tight-lipped," said CJ Griffin, a Hackensack attorney who focuses on public records access and represented NorthJersey.com in its lawsuit. "I have had to write many objection letters and to sue multiple times on behalf of various requestors just to get some basic transparency.

Needless to say, that's not the kind of proactive compliance that would confirm the Murphy administration isn't trying to hide damaging information about its version of New York's Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Along with New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, New Jersey was one of just four states to force nursing homes to admit COVID patients being dumped out of hospitals to free up their bed space during the most dangerous phase of the coronavirus pandemic.

There's quite a lot more information in the article, which provides a good overview of some of the worse abuses that took place at New Jersey's nursing and veterans homes during hte pandemic. That anybody knows about at this writing, in any case.

1 April 2022: Cuomo Sues JCOPE in Bid To Keep $5M Book Deal Profits

Cuomo sues Albany ethics commission in attempt to keep $5M book profits

Andrew M. Cuomo sued New York's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) in a bid to keep the $5.2 million he gained from his pandemic "leadership" book deal. That follows the 19 March 2022 vote JCOPE's commissioners had to order Cuomo to repay the publisher after revoking the permission a lower level staff member granted to Cuomo back in June 2020. Negotiations for Cuomo's book had begun as early as 19 March 2020.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hit Albany’s ethics watchdog with a lawsuit Friday, accusing it of “extraordinary bias” against him as he seeks to hold onto proceeds from his $5.1 million book deal.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics voted overwhelmingly in November to rescind its decision that allowed Cuomo to write “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” arguing state resources were used to write the book, which it said contained “serial omissions and misrepresentations” about New York’s pandemic response.

Cuomo’s lawyers argued that he complied with JCOPE’s original parameters for writing the book and asked the state supreme court to overrule the agency’s decision and allow him to keep the millions he earned from the book.

The former governor claimed that staff members who worked on the book did so on their own time, and said the agency’s ruling amounted to “flagrant violations of the due process rights secured to him by the United States Constitution.”

“Simply stated, never in the history of New York State has an agency so breathtakingly and irresponsibly prejudged a matter on which it is the final decisionmaker,” the lawsuit filed in Albany County claimed.

Here is background on Andrew M. Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book deal from the timeline:

• 19 March 2020: Cuomo's Literary Agent Takes Call from Publisher Seeking Book by Cuomo About Pandemic Leadership, Work Begins Shortly Afterward
• 27 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Reviews Early Drafts of His Pandemic Leadership Book
• 1 July 2020: Draft of Cuomo Pandemic "Leadership" Book Reaches 70,000 Words in Length
• 5 July 2020: Top Cuomo Staffer Edits His Pandemic "Leadership" Book, NY DOH Nursing Home Report
• 6 July 2020: Cuomo and Top Staffer Meet with Publisher to Discuss Book Deal
• 8 July 2020: Bidding Begins for Right to Publish Cuomo's Pandemic "Leadership" Book
• 1 April 2021: Governor Cuomo's Pandemic Book Deal Scandal Blows Up
• 9 April 2021: Cuomo Staffers Not Volunteers in Governor's Book Project
• 19 April 2021: DiNapoli Refers Cuomo Pandemic Book Scandal Case to State AG
• 30 April 2021: Cuomo Book Deal a Motive for Continuing Cover-up of COVID Nursing Home Deaths
• 17 May 2021: Cuomo To Collect $5.12 Million from Pandemic Leadership Book Deal
• 19 May 2021: Opinion - Cuomo Earned $102 per Book Sold During Cover-up
• 8 June 2021: Prosecutors Subpoena Cuomo Book Material in Probe of COVID Nursing Home Deaths
• 5 October 2021: JCOPE's Commissioners to Investigate JCOPE Staff Over Cuomo Book Deal
• 22 November 2021: NY Assembly Impeachment Probe Report Confirms Link Between Book Deal and Nursing Home Deaths Cover-up
• 23 November 2021: Cuomo Cover-up of COVID Nursing Home Deaths Originated in March 2020
• 9 December 2021: How Can JCOPE Claw Back Cuomo's Pandemic "Leadership" Book Deal Millions?
• 27 January 2022: JCOPE Subpoena Probes Cuomo Pandemic 'Volunteers'
• 15 March 2022: JCOPE Tries Again to Force Cuomo to Give Up Proceeds from Corrupt Pandemic "Leadership" Book Deal Profits
• 19 March 2022: JCOPE Orders Cuomo to Repay Pandemic "Leadership" Book Deal Millions to Publisher

We think its funny that April Fool's Day figures so prominently in Andrew M. Cuomo's pandemic "leadership" book deal scandal.