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FBI, U.S. attorney in Brooklyn probing Cuomo administration on nursing homes
Quote:ALBANY — The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn have launched an investigation that is examining, at least in part, the actions of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's coronavirus task force in its handling of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic, the Times Union has learned.
The probe by the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York is apparently in its early stages and is focusing on the work of some of the senior members of the governor's task force, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who is not authorized to comment publicly.
Last March, as the virus began spreading in New York, Cuomo issued a news release listing the 13 initial members of his coronavirus task force, which has been headed by Linda Lacewell, an attorney and former chief of staff for Cuomo. Lacewell is the superintendent of the state Department of Financial Services. Other task force members include state health Commissioner Howard Zucker, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Beth Garvey, counsel to the governor.
"As we publicly said, DOJ (Department of Justice) has been looking into this for months," said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor. "We have been cooperating with them and we will continue to."
Azzopardi did not disclose whether any members of the administration have been interviewed or if they have been served with any subpoenas.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, on Wednesday afternoon said he could not "confirm or deny" whether the office has initiated an investigation.
Nearly three weeks after the governor's task force was announced last year, the state health department issued an order directing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that they must accept residents who were being discharged from hospitals even if they were still testing positive for the infectious disease, as long as they were able to care for them properly.
That directive, which was rescinded less than two months later, has been the focus of a firestorm of criticism directed at Cuomo's administration, including allegations that the order — which the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 report by the Department of Health that was released in July.
Last month, the office of Attorney General Letitia James issued a scathing report that concluded the practice may have increased the risk of COVID-19 infections at the congregate facilities and that Cuomo's administration had delayed reporting that thousands of additional nursing home residents died at hospitals after being infected in their residential facilities.
It's unclear whether the federal probe by the office of acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme is tied to two letters that Cuomo's administration received from a civil division attorney at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., last year seeking information on the state's nursing home policies and data.
The controversy boiled over again last week when DeRosa, in a closed-door meeting with key Democrats in the state Legislature with the authority to subpoena and investigate the governor's administration, told the group that the administration had withheld information lawmakers had requested on nursing homes for months due to the Justice Department's inquiry.
DeRosa, in the private meeting that was the subject of a subsequent leak, characterized the Justice Department official who sent the letter, Jeffrey Clark, an attorney who headed the department's civil division, as a "political hack" that she contended had pursued the probe at the urging of President Donald J. Trump.
"Basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us and we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation," DeRosa told the Democratic lawmakers.
In a formal statement a day after her remarks were leaked, DeRosa said the administration has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice.
The recent probe by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn is not the first time that New York City-based federal prosecutors have launched investigations in New York's Northern District, which stretches from Kingston to the Canadian border with headquarters in Albany and Syracuse. A sprawling fraud and bribery case involving top Cuomo aides in Albany was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan; the prosecution of NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere and other top members of his organization was handled by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, issued a statement Wednesday urging President Joe Biden to allow Antoinette Bacon, the acting U.S. attorney in New York's Northern District, to be assigned to investigate Cuomo's administration in connection with its reporting of nursing home fatalities.
Grassley noted that the U.S. attorney in New York's Manhattan-based Southern District, Audrey Strauss, is the mother-in-law of DeRosa and should not be involved in any probe.
Bacon, who was appointed acting U.S. attorney in Albany in September, is among dozens of U.S. attorneys who may be removed from their positions by the Biden administration. Bacon had recently been the Justice Department's national elder-justice coordinator and served as the national white collar crime coordinator at the executive office for U.S. attorneys.
She is a highly decorated prosecutor and has received special awards from the IRS, U.S. Postal Service and the Justice Department "for her prosecutions of fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption," according to her professional biography.
But the probe being conducted by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn apparently does not involve the Northern District.
Earlier this week, Cuomo stopped short of apologizing for his administration's handling of nursing homes' fatality data, repeatedly noting they had created a "void" by not providing the information requested by state lawmakers.
"Apologize? Look, I have said repeatedly, we made a mistake in creating the void," he said. "When we didn’t provide information it allowed press, people, cynics, politicians to fill the void. When you don’t correct this information you allow it to continue and we created the void."
Republicans at all levels of New York's government spectrum, and many Democrats as well, have repeatedly called for independent investigations of the state's nursing home policies and directives during the ongoing pandemic. Some of those critics also have raised questions about whether there were any ties between policy decisions and hospitals or other special interests that either have business before the state or are subject to its regulating agencies.
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Quote:CNN reinstated a ban this week on opinion host Chris Cuomo being able to interview or cover his scandal-ridden brother, New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo, which comes as reports surfaced on Wednesday evening that a criminal investigation has been launched into Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as it relates to nursing homes.
“The early months of the pandemic crisis were an extraordinary time. We felt that Chris speaking with his brother about the challenges of what millions of American families were struggling with was of significant human interest,” CNN said in a statement. “As a result, we made an exception to a rule that we have had in place since 2013 which prevents Chris from interviewing and covering his brother, and that rule remains in place today. CNN has covered the news surrounding Governor Cuomo extensively.”
The announcement comes as news reports surfaced on Wednesday evening that federal law enforcement officials have launched an investigation into the Cuomo administration’s handling of the pandemic.
“The probe by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York is apparently in its early stages and is focusing on the work of some of the senior members of the governor’s task force,” the Times Union reported. “Nearly three weeks after the governor’s task force was announced last year, the state health department issued an order directing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that they must accept residents who were being discharged from hospitals even if they were still testing positive for the infectious disease, as long as they were able to care for them properly.”
CNN was repeatedly slammed for allowing Chris Cuomo to interview his brother in segments that were largely entertainment-oriented and that critics said made a mockery of Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic.
“This is one of the most embarrassing and self-destructive things I’ve seen a news outlet do,” far-left reporter Glenn Greenwald said. “I doubt even North Korean State TV would allow an anchor to ‘interview’ his own brother and use their airwaves to declare him a Great and Noble Leader.”
Greenwald said that the segments were the result of “Dynastic political power + State TV.”
Left-leaning Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple slammed CNN’s statement, writing:
To what extent has “Cuomo Prime Time” covered the undercount scandal in recent weeks? Not one bit. The host has plowed through plenty of worthy topics: coronavirus vaccines and variants, QAnon and conspiracy theories, the Capitol riot and impeachment, and more. But the absence of coverage of the nursing-home scandal contrasts sharply with other CNN precincts, which have stayed on top of the story. On Sunday’s “State of the Union,” for example, host Jake Tapper ripped away, “So Governor Cuomo, who has declined to appear on this show despite dozens of requests over the past year, including this past week, made a bad decision that may have cost lives. And then his administration hid that data from the public.”
Not that the work of Cuomo’s colleagues absolves him. “Cuomo Prime Time,” after all, brands itself as a locus of chest-beating integrity and righteousness. Yet the asymmetrical coverage of his brother — over-the-top praise when the governor is up; silence when he’s down — is indistinct from the model that CNN (quite rightly) accused conservative media outlets, including Fox News, of following vis-à-vis the Trump administration.
“The CNN statement is an expression of the problem itself: You can’t nullify a rule when your star anchor’s brother is flying high, only to invoke it during times of scandal,” Wemple concluded. “You just can’t.”
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Quote:Democratic leaders of the New York State Senate are moving to strip Gov. Andrew Cuomo of his emergency powers as the embattled executive continues to suffer fallout over his handling of the pandemic.
Democratic lawmakers have hammered Cuomo in the days since a top administration aide reportedly admitted that the governor’s team hid health data on seniors over fear that it could spark a federal investigation. Cuomo later denied that his administration hid any data.
Stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers granted during the COVID-19 outbreak would be a stunning rebuke of the governor’s handling of the pandemic by his party allies in the state legislature, according to The New York Times. A vote on the motion to strip the governor of emergency authority could come as soon as next week.
News of the Democratic-led push to curb the New York governor comes amid reports that Cuomo is under investigation by the Department of Justice and the FBI.
As The Daily Wire reports:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is under investigation by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, as well as the FBI, for his administration’s decision to send recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, local New York media reported Wednesday night.
According to the Albany Times-Union, the U.S. Attorney’s investigation is in its “early stages,” but is focusing on Cuomo’s controversial nursing home policy, which may have resulted in thousands of deaths, many more than the Cuomo administration originally reported.
Last week, more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers issued a statement calling to strip Cuomo of emergency powers.
“Without exception, the New York State Constitution calls for the Legislature to govern as a co-equal branch of government,” the statement said. “While COVID-19 has tested the limits of our people and state – and, early during the pandemic, required the government to restructure decision making to render rapid, necessary public health judgments – it is clear that the expanded emergency powers granted to the Governor are no longer appropriate.”
Scandal erupted around the governor last week following a meeting between Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Democratic lawmakers in which DeRosa allegedly apologized for hiding data on the death toll from the coronavirus in the state’s nursing homes.
DeRosa reportedly told Democratic lawmakers that the administration hid the data to avoid federal scrutiny from the Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump.
As The Daily Wire reported:
The New York Post reports that DeRosa told state Democratic leaders during a video conference call that “‘we froze’ out of fear the true numbers would ‘be used against us.’” During the call, DeRosa reportedly explained that the Cuomo administration’s decision to rebuff a “legislative request” for the COVID-19 death count in August was in large part motivated by the thought that “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football.”
The report continues to quote DeRosa, who allegedly said, “He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes. He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer.”
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Another investigation that will end with "nothing to see here."
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[NEWS] FBI, U.S. attorney in Brooklyn probing Cuomo administration on nursing homes
