Emails from former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ’s senior staff revealed Cuomo was intimately involved in drafting a New York State Health Department report that deflected blame for thousands of nursing home resident deaths due to COVID-19 in early 2020.
During his testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this month, Cuomo denied any responsibility for the March 25, 2020, directive that required nursing homes to take in patients with COVID-19, saying instead that it was developed entirely within the NYSHD.
Cuomo also denied being involved in the drafting of the NYSHD report that downplayed the role of the March 25 order by instead blaming the high number of nursing home-related deaths on staff who had COVID-19.
The former governor told the select subcommittee during his public hearing this month that he did not recall seeing a draft of the report before it was released to the public.
However, emails obtained by the New York Times indicate that Cuomo personally wrote parts of early drafts of the NYSHD report.
One email, sent from Cuomo’s assistant, Farah Kennedy, on June 23, 2020, to several senior staff members referenced an attached file with the “governor’s edits.” Other email exchanges referenced physical copies of the NYSHD report being transported back and forth between the governor’s mansion and senior staff.
The emails obtained by the outlet were not part of the official investigation from the select subcommittee.
The controversy about the NYSHD report stems from accounting for the exact number of nursing home residents who perished due to COVID-19.
Republicans in the congressional investigation alleged Cuomo and his inner circle of advisers were directly involved in lowering the number of nursing home-related deaths in the state by excluding all COVID-19 deaths of nursing home patients that occurred in hospitals.
Initial drafts of the report placed the number of nursing home-related COVID-19 deaths at less than 10,000, but the outlet reported that as many as 15,000 nursing home residents died of COVID-19 in the Empire State as a result of the March 25 policy.
Transcribed interview testimony from a former adviser to Cuomo, Jim Malatras , confirmed that the former governor provided edits to the NYSHD report “in a number of ways” to his senior staff, including through handwritten notes and word of mouth.
Malatras told the select subcommittee, however, that he did not recall Cuomo being involved in discussions about the number of nursing home deaths but rather “around language” and making the report more casual.
Cuomo has been open about his preference for telephone communication instead of email or other more traceable means. The former governor also uses BlackBerry PIN messages.
Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi told the Washington Examiner that the congressional investigation has not uncovered any meaningful evidence against Cuomo and has instead indicated that New York public health decisions were informed by guidance from the Trump administration.
“Gov. Cuomo was fully cooperative with the committee over two separate days, relayed everything he remembered about events that happened four years ago in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic, and nothing this MAGA committee has uncovered undermines that New York followed Trump's CDC nursing home policies or the DOH report’s conclusion that COVID was spread in nursing homes by asymptomatic staff," Azzopardi said.
When Cuomo testified publicly before Congress on Sept. 9, the select subcommittee issued a subpoena for further documents about Cuomo from the office of the current Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), saying that her staff has not been cooperative with the investigation to date.
The subcommittee says documents provided to it by the Hochul administration have been heavily redacted and do not include certain mobile communications between Cuomo and his senior staff, including BlackBerry messages.
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A spokesperson for the select subcommittee told the Washington Examiner that the Hochul administration has until Sept. 24 to provide all subpoenaed documents.
"We expect that the governor’s office will comply with a duly issued subpoena and provide all relevant documents," said the subcommittee spokesperson.
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