New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday he will resign after a withering report from the state’s attorney general documented multiple accusations of sexual harassment against women. The New York state Assembly will suspend its impeachment investigation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo after his resignation takes effect Aug. 25, Speaker Carl Heastie said Friday. The Assembly was also advised by the Judiciary Committee that the state constitution does not authorize impeaching and removing an elected official who is no longer in office, Heastie said.
What I find interesting is on how convenient this me too scandal is what brought him down. That is that in spite of all the covid-19 deaths he has caused by housing infected people in nursing home. Mr. Cuomo was criticized over a state requirement that forced nursing homes to take back residents who had been hospitalized with Covid-19 once they recovered. Critics said the policy had increased the number of virus-related deaths among nursing home residents.
At the time, Mr. Cuomo and his aides dismissed the outcry as politically motivated, and in July, the State Health Department released a report that found the policy was not responsible for an increase. The report did, however, raise questions in some quarters about how the state was reporting deaths.
In January, New York’s attorney general said the administration had undercounted nursing home deaths by several thousand. Mr. Cuomo later acknowledged as much, blaming the lower figure on fears that the Trump administration would use the data as a political weapon.
The suggestion that the actual death count had been covered up intensified criticism of Mr. Cuomo, including from his allies in state government. The scandal deepened after reports that the governor’s aides had altered the July report to hide the true figure.
In April, The New York Times reported that Mr. Cuomo’s aides had gone to far greater lengths than previously known to obscure the death toll, repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether Mr. Cuomo and his aides provided false data on resident deaths to the Justice Department, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
More than 172,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died of complications from Covid-19 in the United States, according to a Times analysis. New York leads all states in such deaths, with more than 15,000 so far.
By the time the Health Department issued its July report, Mr. Cuomo had been under fire over nursing homes for months. The criticism came mostly from Republican lawmakers, who suggested his administration was directly responsible for the high death toll.
At issue was a policy issued in March 2020 that effectively ordered nursing homes to take back residents who had been discharged from hospitals after being treated for Covid-19. The goal was to keep virus patients from overwhelming hospitals, a step other states also took.
Mr. Cuomo’s critics said the order had fueled the spread of the virus in nursing homes. He disputed the accusation.
The Health Department report revived questions about how New York was counting such deaths. At the time, the state’s tally only included residents who had died inside a nursing home; it excluded those who died at a hospital or other facility.
The policy, which differed from those followed in other states, effectively hid the total number of nursing home residents who had died of the virus. State lawmakers called for hearings and requested complete data. Public health officials criticized the administration’s approach. Eventually, the Justice Department opened an inquiry.
Throughout the summer and fall, Mr. Cuomo dismissed the criticism by citing to the Health Department report. Around the same time, he was celebrating the state’s initial success in controlling the virus’s spread after a devastating spring during which tens of thousands of people died.
After his televised briefings catapulted him into the national spotlight, Mr. Cuomo wrote a book about what he viewed as his achievements during the still-raging pandemic. In light of the recent controversies, the book’s publisher has said it would no longer promote the title and that it would not issue a paperback version.
As politicians, health experts and federal investigators called for complete figures for the deaths of nursing home residents, the Cuomo administration continued to delay the data’s release, saying more time was need to compile and verify it.
Then in January, Ms. James reported that the administration had undercounted virus-related deaths of nursing home residents by several thousand. Hours later, the Health Department added more than 3,800 such deaths to its tally.
Lawmakers again demanded answers about the delay in releasing the figures, with many theorizing that the administration had deliberately stalled to avoid blame for the higher toll.
On a private conference call in February, Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to Mr. Cuomo, told Democratic lawmakers that the state had withheld the data because it feared an investigation by the Trump administration.
But according to documents and interviews, Ms. DeRosa herself was involved in rewriting the Health Department report months before the Justice Department began seeking information about the administration’s nursing home policy.
The F.B.I. has since been looking at information that New York submitted last year to the Justice Department, which had asked for data on Covid-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes, according to people familiar with the investigation. False statements in such a submission could constitute a crime.
Not trying to criminalize sexual assault and harrassment but who speaks for the dead? Andrew Cuomo should also be held accountable for his crimes that caused the deaths of thousands. With a loud voice we should demand justice. We should not allow this to be swept under the rug and remind them that they fucking killed people. This is not about Left and right it is about right and wrong!
Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-york-gov-andrew-cuomo-resigns-n1260310
https://www.nytimes.com/article/andrew-cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html