MEP Ron Kim has for months been one of the few Democratic lawmakers willing to criticize Government Andrew M. Cuomo for his handling of the state’s nursing homes during the pandemic, and insists on investigating the matter.
When a leading assistant of mr. Cuomo recently acknowledged that his government had withheld nursing information from state lawmakers, Mr. Kim, whose district of Queens was hit hard by the coronavirus, said it looked like the governor was trying to evade evidence. ”
Hours after Mr. Kim made the remark to The New York Post last Thursday, saying he received an angry late-night call from the governor. Mr. Cuomo begins with a question, “Are you an honorable man?” – and then shouted for ten minutes, Mr. Kim recalled and threatened to slander the congregation member in public, urging him to issue a new statement clarifying his remarks.
Mr. Cuomo on Wednesday afternoon approved his threat.
In a remarkable version, the governor uses his press briefing to dispute allegations of improperness at the meeting and says that he and his government have a ‘long and hostile relationship’ with Mr. Kim had, now in his fifth term.
In particular, Mr. Cuomo angry and belligerent about a letter published by The New York Post signed by several members of the Assembly, including Kim. The letter, citing the governor’s delay in releasing a full death toll from residents of nursing homes, including those that happened after a resident was transferred to a hospital, said Mr. Cuomo is accused of trying to circumvent a federal investigation and ‘deliberate obstruction of justice’. ”
In lengthy remarks, Cuomo also accuses the compiler of a “continuous rocket” asking for donations from nail salon owners, who were upset about a 2015 nail salon reform law he helped manufacture.
“I believe it was unethical if not illegal,” Cuomo said, suggesting Kim was ‘paying to play’.
The screaming back-and-forth comes as the Cuomo government continues the effects of a series of revelations about the withholding of the data, covering the full extent of the number of residents of the nursing home to the virus.
In the last month, the Cuomo government has nearly doubled the official death toll of nursing home residents, from about 8,500 to more than 15,000 – in the wake of a scathing report by Attorney General Letitia James and a court order.
Mr. Cuomo strongly denied that he had violated, despite a nearly six-month delay between the formal request of lawmakers in August and the disclosure of the data following Mrs’ report. James.
Many lawmakers are angry about the governor’s lack of openness regarding nursing homes and other issues. In particular, the delay in reporting data to lawmakers has hampered his relationship with fellow Democrats, who govern both houses of the legislature, and encouraged Republican attacks.
The latest catalyst involves a private meeting between Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, and the Democratic legislators, including Mr. Kim.
Ms DeRosa told lawmakers last Wednesday that the Cuomo administration had not heeded lawmakers’ month-long request for information on deaths in nursing homes because the Department of Justice had made a similar request. She said the government was concerned that former President Donald J. Trump would politicize the matter and open a formal investigation into Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes.
Mrs. DeRosa said the Trump administration “turned nursing homes into a giant political football” and, when we received the request from the Department of Justice, “we basically froze.”
The next day, after the Post story was published, Mr. Kim was at home with his wife and wanted to bathe his children when he received the call from the governor.
Mr. Cuomo, he said, was furious about Kim’s remarks to The Post, which quoted him as saying, among other things, that he had taken away from the call that the Cuomo government ‘should first ensure that the state protects against federal investigation. ”
‘He goes about how I did not see his anger and rage, that he would destroy me and that he would go out tomorrow and tell me how bad I am and that I would be finished and how he bit his tongue over me for months, ”said Mr. Kim said. It all screamed. It was not a pleasant tone. ”
Mr. Kim said he felt bad for the position in which Ms. DeRosa was and even tried to get The Post to remove his quotes before receiving the call from the governor. Mr. Kim said Mr. Cuomo asked him to issue a new statement in which he said he had effectively heard DeRosa wrong. He said the governor wanted Mr. Kim should say that DeRosa told lawmakers that the reason they withheld nursing homes was because the government was responding to the Justice Department’s request.
But Mr. Kim told The Times he was not prepared to issue a new statement contradicting what he heard in the call with Ms DeRosa.
“Actually, I saw a crime and he asked me to say that I did not see the crime,” he said. Kim said. “I heard what I heard and I can not lie.”
A spokesman for the governor, when asked about Mr. Cuomo’s call with Mr. Kim, initially suggested that the governor’s statement on Wednesday dealt with the issue adequately.
But after this article was published, the spokesman, Richard Azzopardi, said that Cuomo Mr. Kim only asked to clarify his remarks because the meeting informed him that it was taken out of the context of the Post article.
Cuomo officials maintained that the governor had never said he would kill Mr. Kim would not ‘destroy’, describing the conversation between the two men as ‘calm’, and denying the governor.
“Mr Kim is lying about his conversation with Governor Cuomo on Thursday night,” Azzopardi said. “I know because I was one of three other people in the room when the phone call took place. No one threatened anyone at any time with them to ‘destroy’ ‘anger’ and also not to do a ‘cover-up’. “
Mr. Kim said the governor called him four more times on Saturday, but he did not pick up because he was stressed by the situation and felt uncomfortable. Since then, he has retained legal advice and told the governor’s office that his lawyer should be in any future communication.
“The governor can personally attack me anything he wants in an attempt to divert our attention from his incompetent management,” he said. Kim said in a statement. “But these facts do not disappear, because they are the facts and are unacceptable.”