House GOP seeks criminal charges from DOJ for Cuomo in nursing home death scandal

Select Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland Obtained on Wednesday by the Washington Examiner calling for Cuomo to be investigated by the Ministry of Justice for concealing his involvement in the New York State Department of Health’s report on the number of seniors who died due to state requirements nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients.

“Mr. Cuomo made false statements to the Select Subcommittee in what appears to be a deliberate, calculated effort to protect himself from liability,” Wenstrup wrote to Garland.

The subcommittee affirmed for the Washington Examiner that their referral to the Ministry of Justice was not related to the original drafting of the directive of March 25, 2020, which provided that nursing homes could not refuse entry based on a COVID-19 diagnosis.

But in its referral to the DOJ, the subcommittee submitted more than 100 pages of documentation showing that Cuomo made “criminally false statements” to Congress about his role in the report estimating deaths linked to the policy, published on July 6. 2020.

Cuomo’s press representative did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.

Early drafts of the July 6 NYSDOH report on the nursing home directive estimated the number of nursing home-related deaths at fewer than 10,000, but evidence from multiple studies indicates that there may have been as many as 15,000 deaths resulting from the mandatory admission policy.

Cuomo repeatedly told the subcommittee during his transcribed interview in June and his public hearing in July that he was not involved in crafting the mandatory nursing home admissions policy or the July 6 report that undercounted deaths.

But testimony from New York Executive Chamber staff, including Senior Advisor Jim Malatras and Executive Assistant Farrah Kennedyindicate that Cuomo was deeply involved in drafting the July 6 report, which revised key portions of the report to downplay the severity of the death toll resulting from the nursing home policy.

More than 20 pages of the document submitted to Garland contained scanned pages of the first drafts of the July 6 report with handwritten notes, identified by Kennedy as Cuomo’s handwriting.

Kennedy told the subcommittee during a voluntarily transcribed interview on Oct. 8 that executive assistants were often asked to decipher Cuomo’s handwriting because Cuomo preferred to make changes to documents manually rather than electronically.

According to Kennedy, Cuomo often stood over the shoulder of executive assistants in the governor’s office while dictating to them what to type.

The evidence cited to Garland also highlights testimony from several witnesses regarding an email sent to staff members on June 7, 2020, during the period when there were multiple changes to the Executive Chamber’s nursing home report.

Stephanie Benton, another executive assistant, sent an email to senior staff in June about the report on nursing home deaths, saying it was “going to be a major debacle for the history books” and asking, “Don’t you see how is this bad? ? Or do we admit mistakes and give up?”

Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, confirmed on behalf of the subcommittee that the multiple Executive House staff members who received the email understood the message to have come directly from Cuomo, who DeRosa said would “often dictate emails to Stephanie” and other assistants.

Recipients of the June email included Malatras, State’s Attorney Gareth Rhodes and NYSDOH Commissioner Howard Zucker.

Cuomo’s press representative did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.

Last month, the select subcommittee accused Cuomo of intimidating Malatras, who at the time in the investigation was the only witness who contradicted Cuomo’s denials of involvement in drafting the report.

Malatras told the subcommittee that Cuomo had contacted him several times over the course of the subcommittee’s investigation, after the two had not spoken for several years. Malatras said Cuomo’s communications made him feel “uneasy.”

The subcommittee’s report to Garland notes that the DOJ has in the past prosecuted witnesses for making false statements to congressional committees, citing the persecution by Roger Stone in 2019 about Russian influence in the 2016 elections.

At this time, it is unclear how Cuomo and Garland’s relationship could affect the likelihood of a DOJ investigation into the former governor’s cover-up.

Cuomo, who resigned in 2021, requested a meeting with Garland in February to discuss a settlement agreement between the DOJ and New York State regarding the investigation into Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment of at least thirteen women.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINATOR

In the filing to Garland, Cuomo’s legal team outlined that there had been “apparently no actual investigation” into the sexual harassment case against Cuomo, saying the former governor had not been interviewed by a DOJ representative.

The DOJ did not respond to the Washington Examiner on whether or not the meeting between Garland and Cuomo took place.