Former Governor Andrew Cuomo will be on a Congressional hot seat very soon over how his administration managed the COVID crisis in New York.
That’s because House Republicans slapped Cuomo with a Congressional subpoena, compelling him to testify on Capitol Hill.
House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) issued the subpoena. Cuomo must appear before the committee for what will be a Congressional grilling on May 24, 2024.
“The day of reckoning has finally arrived for disgraced Former Governor Andrew Cuomo as he must answer for his disastrous and criminal COVID policies and cover-up. His corruption needlessly cost the lives of over 15,000 vulnerable New York seniors in nursing homes across the state,” said Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.
A Cuomo spokesman offered a blistering rebuttal to the issuance of a subpoena, claiming it was an unnecessary stunt since the former Governor offered federal lawmakers numerous dates for him to testify.
“This is an obvious press charade: they issue a subpoena as a press release. Congress is officially a circus and they are nothing but clowns,” said Cuomo Spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
At the core of why Cuomo is being forced to testify before Congress is his controversial order that forced nursing homes to accept and admit seniors who were stricken with COVID, and have them around previously healthy elderly patients.
An investigation by the Office of New York State Attorney General found the Cuomo administration undercounted and underreported COVID nursing home deaths by almost 50% of the number of actual fatalities.
The Long Term Care Community Care Coalition compiled COVID death data from The New York State Department of Health, who reported approximately 17,425 COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and other adult care facilities across New York.
Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean lost both her mother-in-law and father-in-law to COVID related deaths. They were living in nursing homes at the time of their deaths. Dean publicly praised Congress for forcing Cuomo to answer questions under oath on how he managed the COVID crisis in the Empire State.
“The subpoenas are here Andrew Cuomo. Almost four years to the day you ordered thousands of Covid patients into nursing homes where our most elderly resided. You don’t care. But we do,” said Dean.
At the heart of Cuomo’s testimony will be whether or not his order on March 25th, 2020 was a needless death sentence for seniors, due to the fact that the former Governor ordered New York nursing homes to admit or readmit seniors who may have had COVID-19.
“Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo implemented nursing home policies that had deadly consequences for New York’s most vulnerable population. Not only did the former Governor put the elderly in harm’s way, but he also attempted to cover-up his failures by hiding the true nursing home death rate. It appears that politics, not medicine, was responsible for these decisions,” said Chairman Wenstrup.