New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), pushed back against his mounting number of detractors following the revelation that his office lied to the state and federal governments about COVID nursing home deaths, saying to threaten him with a subpoena is “against the law.”
Cuomo’s executive secretary, Melissa DeRosa, ignited a firestorm last week when she “apologized” to New York Democrat lawmakers for withholding the accurate count of the state’s COVID nursing home death toll.
DeRosa admitted that Cuomo’s office “froze” because they feared the real numbers would spark a Justice Department investigation into his order to place infected patients in with the most vulnerable in our society, the elderly.
New York Democrats, both at the state and federal levels, and including New York City’s Progressive mayor, Bill deBlassio (D), immediately called for a “full investigation” and floated the promise of rescinding Cuomo’s emergency powers.
But Cuomo used his Monday news conference to attack those who dared to ask for accurate numbers and a truthful accounting of the incident.
“You can’t use a subpoena or the threat of investigation to leverage a person,” Cuomo insisted. “That’s a crime. It’s called abuse of power, it’s called extortion.”
.@NYGovCuomo warns the New York legislature not to threaten him with subpoenas.
"You can't use a subpoena or the threat of investigation to leverage a person" pic.twitter.com/hQuOuDvxJ6
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 15, 2021
Cuomo went on to absolve himself of any responsibility for the nursing home deaths that came about as a result of his quartering order, claiming visitors brought COVID into the nursing homes, not the COVID positive patients he forced upon the nursing homes.
.@NYGovCuomo says visitors brought COVID-19 into New York's nursing homes, not positive patients ordered there by his administration. pic.twitter.com/v5lERFVm9g
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 15, 2021
Cuomo’s cowardly abdication of responsibility and his attempt to intimidate those elected officials who called for investigations, including the subpoenaing of data should it come to that, was met immediately with consternation.
“I reiterate my call for @NYGovCuomo and his administration to be subpoenaed for all pertinent information. We need answers and grieving families deserve justice. Enough with the spin,” tweeted New York State Senator Jessica Ramos (D-13).
I reiterate my call for @NYGovCuomo and his administration to be subpoenaed for all pertinent information. We need answers and grieving families deserve justice. Enough with the spin. https://t.co/dvVLPA4F1R
— Jessica Ramos (@jessicaramos) February 15, 2021
And Bill Hammond, a Senior Fellow at the Empire Center, a non-profit think tank focused on reforming government policies in New York State, tweeted, “Cuomo says it’s a crime to leverage an investigation to get action from a government official…That was more or less his explicit strategy with the Moreland Commission in 2013.”
Cuomo says it's a crime to leverage an investigation to get action from a government official.
That was more or less his explicit strategy with the Moreland Commission in 2013.
— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) February 15, 2021
Cuomo’s office had originally stated that approximately 8,000 nursing home residents had died from the infusion of COVID-positive patients.
The true number was almost double; over 13,000.