Former Governor George Pataki has been slammed to Governor Andrew Cuomo, calling the COVID-19 nursing home death a disguised ‘scandal’ one of the worst things I’ve seen in the state government. ‘
During an interview on AM 570 WMCA radio, Pataki called Cuomo’s nursing home policies and actions ‘inhuman’, ‘reprehensible’, ‘outrageous’, ‘despicable’ and ‘beyond the pale’.
He called for a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice, State Attorney General Letitia James and independent investigation conducted by the legislature.
“This is one of the worst things I’ve seen in the New York government, and I’ve been following it for a long time,” Pataki said of the cover-up of the nursing home.
He also said that the legislature should limit Cuomo’s emergency forces, which would speed up the COVID-19 vaccination and end Albany’s “micro-management”.
‘You will not worry that people will lose a million dollar fine or their license if you give someone in category 2CW a vaccine as opposed to category 2AB. It is asynical micro-management, ”he said.
There is growing support among fellow Democrats who control the state assembly and the senate to deprive Cuomo of the powers they granted him last year to respond quickly to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak. These powers expire on April 30th.
Pataki said Cuomo and his health department only began dying with the deaths of nursing homes after Attorney General Letitia James released a stinging report finding that they were misleading the public by 50 percent coronavirus deaths among residents of sign the facility – all by excluding people who have died after being transported to hospitals.
A state judge also recently ordered Cuomo to release more complete data on deaths across nursing homes after ruling that the government had illegally withheld the information from the Empire Center for Public Policy for months. The watchdog group submitted a legitimate request for the figures.
‘We know they hid the number of deaths. It is just despicable, “said Pataki.
Last May, Pataki criticized the State Health Department’s mandate to order nursing homes to admit or re-admit coronavirus patients discharged during the pandemic.
Critics have noted that the policy contributed to the spread of the killer bug in the facilities for frail elderly people.
In just a few weeks, we were told there were a little over 8,000 deaths. “Now we are told that the number is more than 13,000,” Pataki said on Friday.
Pataki also describes Cuomo’s selfish decision to publish a book about his COVID-19 leadership lessons, just a few months into the pandemic.
‘To write a book about how great your leadership was, when in fact you know you are obscuring thousands of deaths … Then continue this charade about what a tremendous response there has been. That’s incomprehensible, “said the former Republican governor.
Pataki, who led the state after the 2001 terrorist attacks in 2001, said: ‘I was not out there two months after the 9/11 attacks, waving the flag and saying what I did well.
“It was not about me. It reacted to everyone – the firefighters, the construction workers, the first responders, the people of New York. ”
Pataki also slammed Melissa DeRosa’s comments from Cuomo’s chief assistant of a private meeting with state lawmakers Wednesday about the refusal to release a total number of deaths in the nursing home due to an ongoing federal investigation.
The damning numbers would be used by Trump’s Department of Justice against us, she said. The Post only reported DeRosa’s explanation after receiving an audio tape of the Zoom chat.
Pataki calls her comments’ a cover-up to avoid a possible criminal investigation. It definitely smells like obstruction of justice. ”
He also apologized to DeRosa against Democrats, who complained about the stone walls over the death of the nursing home.
“The fact that the government apologized to democratic politicians for their inconvenience, but never apologized to the people or families of those who died – it is inhumane,” said Pataki, who ruled from 1995-2006.
In a statement Friday morning, DeRosa claims that in her remarks, “I explained that when we received the DOJ investigation, we had to temporarily set aside the Legislature’s request to deal with the federal request first.”
In response to Pataki, Governor’s Office The Post referred to a statement issued by DeRosa earlier Friday.
‘I explained that when we received the DOJ inquiry, we had to temporarily set aside the request of the Legislature [for nursing home death data] to handle the federal request first. We informed the houses about this at the time, ”said DeRosa.
‘We were comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ, and had to focus our resources immediately on second wave and vaccine development. As I said during a call with lawmakers, we could not comply with their request as quickly as anyone would like.
“But we are committed to being better partners in the future, as we have the same goal of keeping New Yorkers as healthy as possible during the pandemic.”