Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo dedicated “medical malpractice” and publicly undercounted the whole variety of COVID-related nursing residence deaths in New York throughout the worst interval of the killer pandemic, a damning ultimate investigative report launched by a key Home panel discovered.
The report from the Republican-led Home Choose Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, launched Monday, additionally concluded that Cuomo “probably gave false statements” about his position in pandemic decision-making.
That features him really being “immediately concerned” within the notorious March 2020 edict directing nursing houses to confess recovering COVID-19 sufferers — and downplaying pandemic-related deaths of residents in a July 2020 report, the Home panel discovered.
In one other discovering, the report concluded that Cuomo “acted in a fashion according to an try to inappropriately affect the testimony of a witness and impede the Choose Subcommittee’s investigation,” referring to his contacts with former adviser James Malatras.
The Home had beforehand launched paperwork laying out the allegations about Cuomo and his administration’s actions — however the more-than 500-page ultimate report paints a devastating image of the three-term Democratic governor’s choices that the subcommittee claims undermined public well being.
Cuomo — who’s weighing a political comeback run for mayor after resigning as governor in 2021 amid sexual misconduct accusations he denied — ripped the report as a partisan GOP witch hunt.
“This is identical weak gruel the MAGA Republicans on this committee have been peddling for months if not years,” mentioned Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi.
However Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican who chaired the panel, mentioned within the opening letter of the report that there was bipartisan consensus on quite a few matters together with “that former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo participated in medical malpractice and publicly lined up the whole variety of nursing residence fatalities in New York.”
A greater than 40-page part of the report focuses solely on Cuomo and the state authorities’s response to the pandemic. Cuomo’s identify seems within the report 203 occasions.
Among the many findings alleged within the report are that:
- The Cuomo administration’s March 25, 2020 directive to confess or readmit recovering COVID-19 sufferers into nursing houses was “medical malpractice,” “antithetical to recognized science” and inconsistent with federal steerage — and the Government Chamber “tried to cowl it up.”
- Opposite to his denials throughout Home testimony, Cuomo and his high aides and advisers had been “immediately Concerned” in and permitted the notorious directive, which was later rescinded following public outcry.
- Cuomo administration officers testified that the governor ordered the controversial July 6, 2020 state Division of Well being report — which was criticized for lowballing nursing residence resident deaths from COVID — to fight criticism of the March 25 edict.
- Cuomo was immediately concerned in enhancing the July report and directing individuals exterior the federal government — comparable to Northwell Well being CEO Michael Dowling and Better NY Hospital CEO Kenneth Raske to evaluation it. In a memo shortly earlier than the report’s launch and obtained by the Home panel, Dowling supplied to assist “rewrite” it.
- Cuomo’s government chamber determined to take away “out-of-facility” fatalities — comparable to nursing residence residents who died from COVID after falling unwell and being transferred to hospitals — from the July report, thus dramatically lowering the whole dying toll.
The panel additionally concluded that “Mr. Andrew Cuomo Seemingly Gave False Statements to the Choose Subcommittee in Violation of 18 U.S.C” — a federal crime that if confirmed might lead to a sentence of 5 years in jail.
The committee in October mentioned it had referred Cuomo’s “criminally false statements” to the US Division of Justice for potential prosecution.
Cuomo’s rep, Azzopardi, claimed the Home was out to get “perceived political enemies.”
“From the very starting this has been an abuse of energy and a waste of taxpayer cash geared toward punishing perceived political enemies – like Dr. [Anthony] Fauci [then Director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases], Governor Cuomo and ‘the deep state’ – that does nothing to make us extra ready for the following pandemic,” he mentioned.
He claimed federal knowledge confirmed that New York ranked thirty ninth when it comes to per capita nursing residence deaths in 2020.
“The DOJ -three occasions – the Manhattan DA and others seemed on the nursing residence subject and located no wrongdoing, whereas the meritless civil lawsuit launched by the exact same individuals who have been working arm and arm with this committee was tossed out of courtroom,” Azzopardi added.
Households of family members who had been nursing residence residents and died from COVID mentioned Cuomo was lastly being held to account.
“Cuomo has been mendacity about following the Trump CDC pointers for years,” mentioned Peter Arbeeny, whose father, Norman, died from the virus after being launched from a Brooklyn nursing residence.
“If the Cuomo administration would have adopted the Trump [administration] CDC pointers and likewise used the the USS Consolation ship and Javits Middle [for more patients], 1000’s of lives would have been saved.”
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