Tipsheet

Biden Is President...So Now Cuomo Aides Confess They Cooked the Books on NY’s COVID Deaths

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  February 11, 2021 9:15 PM

We know that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an order that caused the deaths of thousands of senior citizens in the Empire State. It’s not hard. You don’t need to be a medical expert. Forcing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients was a death sentence. These are facilities where the most vulnerable and infirmed reside. Of course, if you flood these buildings with people infected with a contagious disease, bad things will happen. Deaths will happen. Cuomo is a grim reaper. 

Cortney has followed the Cuomo fiasco and noted that the New York Attorney General’s Office reported that the actual death count from nursing homes during COVID was underreported by as much as 50 percent. What happened? Why was the data way off? What is going on in Albany? I think many of you already had an idea. Now, with Biden as president, these Cuomo officials can be open and honest: they hid the data. They were afraid the Trump Department of Justice would come after them. I guess that’s rational. This is a gross act of government incompetency. A top Cuomo aide apologized to state Democratic lawmakers today (via NY Post):

Governor Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned.

The stunning admission of a cover-up was made by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.

“He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes,” DeRosa said. “He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer.”

In addition to attacking Cuomo’s fellow Democratic governors, DeRosa said, Trump “directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us.”

“And basically, we froze,” she told the lawmakers on the call.

It’s a cover-up. Draft the articles of impeachment right now. this is ridiculous. We all knew Cuomo was a disaster in handling COVID. The infection and death rates were absurdly high. This nursing home order, the prevarication in giving solid data on the death rates, and now the failed COVID vaccine rollout all point to this office being abject failures and thinking a mere apology could smooth things over. How dense are these people? 

Oh, it gets better:

After dropping the bombshell, DeRosa asked for “a little bit of appreciation of the context” and offered what appears to be the Cuomo administration’s first apology for its handling of nursing homes amid the pandemic.

But instead of a mea culpa to the grieving family members of more than 13,000 dead seniors or the critics who say the Health Department spread COVID-19 in the care facilities with a March 25 state Health Department directive that nursing homes admit infected patients, DeRosa tried to make amends with the fellow Democrats for the political inconvenience it caused them.

“So we do apologize,” she said. “I do understand the position that you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intention to put you in that political position with the Republicans.”

‘We screwed you over to make ourselves look better—sorry.’ That’s the line. That’s Democratic governance. That’s Cuomo, who now no longer cares about the COVID deaths that he is directly responsible for, which he made clear with his own ‘what difference does it make’ moment (via WaPo):

Recommended

Merry Christmas, And Democrats Can Go To Hell Derek Hunter
Biden Was Too 'Mentally Fatigued' to Take Call From Top Committee Chair Before Afghanistan Withdrawal Sarah Arnold

Facing a brutal report from his own party’s state attorney general that said the state had undercounted nursing home deaths from the virus, Cuomo essentially argued that it’s neither here nor there.

“Look, whether a person died in a hospital or died in a nursing home, it’s — the people died,” Cuomo said. “People died. ‘I was in a hospital, I got transferred to a nursing home, and my father died.' ‘My father was in a nursing home, got transferred to a hospital, my father died.’ People died.”

King Andy’s credibility as a COVID ace is done. It’s been shredded, which undercuts his future political plans which include a run for the White House. Signing the order that killed a lot of old people and covering the true extent of the carnage up doesn’t play well with voters. Indeed, Democrats trashed DeRosa, not giving her credit for this half-assed apology. Besides Democratic lawmakers getting slammed in political attacks, one, State Senate Aging Committee Chairwoman Rachel May (D-Syracuse), noted that in a pandemic, it’s essential to get the public to trust the health officials. This took a blowtorch to that. Oh, and Cuomo’s top health officials are leaving en masse, by the way. Why? He doesn’t want to hear their advice. Yeah, this guy is a real crackerjack on health policy, huh? 

This guy has the stones to blame Trump during this whole COVID pandemic. Andy, you’re the problem. It’s just pathetic. You even said incompetent government is what caused unnecessary COVID deaths. Take a look in the mirror. You killed people, governor. You covered it up. And an apology from your staff isn’t going to do jack. Investigate Cuomo. Investigate his office. NOW.

***

Do we have obstruction of justice here? Thoughts?