The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a new investigation into New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of deaths in the state’s nursing homes, according to a report in the Albany Times-Union on Wednesday night.
The paper reported:
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.
As Breitbart News reported last year, Cuomo’s administration issued a directive in March ordering nursing homes to admit patients from hospitals without testing them for coronavirus. The directive was first reported by conservative radio host Mark Levin, and by the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of patients were assigned to nursing homes, where coronavirus had already begun taking a massive toll, despite the availability of the USNS Comfort hospital she and an Army field hospital at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Cuomo was celebrated by Democrats and the media for his supposed success in handling the pandemic, even winning an Emmy for his televised briefings on the state’s progress in the fight.
Recently, New York Attorney General Letitia James reported that the Cuomo administration had under-reported nursing home deaths. Then an aide to Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa, reportedly told Democrats in a closed-door meeting that the state had under-reported the deaths because it did not want to hand a political victory to President Donald Trump over the issue.
The Times-Union reported that Cuomo’s office described the new probe as a continuation of investigations that the DOJ began under the Trump administration. However, the Times-Union reported that its sources suggested the probe is new.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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