House Oversight Committee Republicans have asked Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to subpoena New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to testify before the panel on coronavirus deaths in his state’s nursing homes, according to a report.
Fox News reported Wednesday:
Fox News exclusively obtained a letter committee Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., and all Republicans on the panel sent to Maloney, D-N.Y., demanding that the committee “hear the truth, under oath, directly from Governor Cuomo.” Comer and Republicans said that Cuomo and his administration “engaged in a cover-up effecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19,” and demanded that Maloney “immediately notice a full committee hearing with Governor Cuomo as the sole witness.” […] Comer and Republicans noted that GOP members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis demanded “accountability and transparency” while “blowing the whistle” on Cuomo’s actions, requesting in June nursing home and fatality data from Cuomo—a request Democrats declined.
The letter comes as Cuomo’s administration is under investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn; the governor’s top deputy reportedly told Democrat lawmakers that officials withheld coronavirus nursing home data over to fears that the figures could “be used against us” in a sweeping federal investigation by the Trump Department of Justice. The New York Post first reported on the bombshell admission.
The Post‘s report prompted New York state lawmakers to call for Cuomo’s emergency powers, granted for coronavirus pandemic, to be stripped from him.
On Wednesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called for Cuomo to resign over the nursing home data scandal and fresh allegations of sexual harassment by a former aide.
In a Medium post published earlier Wednesday, Lindsey Boylan, the former deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser to Cuomo, alleged the governor made unwanted advances toward her, including attempting to kiss her on the mouth. Boylan alleges that Cuomo’s top female staff members “normalized” the governor’s conduct. In October 2017, Cuomo invited her to play “strip poker,” she wrote.
“Governor Cuomo has earned his title as Worst Governor in America, and now every New Yorker knows that he is a criminal sexual predator,” Stefanik said in a blistering statement. “On December 14th, I was one of the first and one of the only elected officials in New York State to call for an investigation into Governor Cuomo’s sexual harassment of Ms. Boylan. It is an inexcusable disgrace that almost every other elected official in New York State quietly brushed this serious and credible allegation under the rug. Sadly, much of the media in the state either ignored this matter or chose to report the sexist character and professional smears of Ms. Boylan by Governor Cuomo’s taxpayer-funded staff.”
“I have served in Congress during the height of the #MeToo movement leading to resignations and retirements of my colleagues,” the New York Republican congresswoman added. “Sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the workplace is not a political issue, it is about right and wrong. Governor Cuomo must immediately resign. And any elected official who does not immediately call for his resignation is complicit in allowing a sexual predator to continue leading the great state of New York.”