According to a recent article, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under investigation by the FBI and a federal prosecutor in an investigation connected with Cuomo’s treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and his decision to compel nursing homes to recognize COVID-19 patients.
According to the Albany Times-Union, the investigation is being conducted by the Brooklyn-based U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York, which quoted “a person with direct knowledge of the matter who is not authorized to publicly comment.”
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The study said the investigation, which is just beginning, will investigate what has been done by senior members of the task force of the governor’s coronavirus.
The New York Times quoted “one of the people familiar with the matter” in its investigation article as saying that investigators had already been in contact with the administration of Cuomo.
The Times confirmed that it was unclear whether Cuomo or those around him were targeted by the investigation.
The newspaper said the latest inquiry was different from an investigation by the Justice Department that was initiated last year and undertaken by the civil rights division of the department.
“The DOJ has been looking into this for months, as we have publicly said,” Richard Azzopardi, the Governor’s spokesman, told the Times-Union. “We have been and will continue to cooperate with them.”
Since DeRosa’s announcement that the Cuomo administration had withheld from lawmakers the full extent of the state’s massive death toll of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19, Cuomo has been under heavy scrutiny.
In a video conference call, DeRosa told Democrats that the administration did not send them the details because the state was essentially trying to conceal the figures from the Justice Department, according to a Feb. 11 bombshell story by the New York Post.
The administration of Cuomo has desperately struggled to keep a cap on the numbers. Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a study showing Cuomo’s administration underreported about 50 percent of nursing home deaths.
NEW: 14 Democratic senators issue a joint statement calling for the removal of Cuomo’s emergency powers. pic.twitter.com/mYwFjMeuDB
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) February 12, 2021
As a “breakdown in communication between the staff and members of the legislature,” the governor has sought to shrug off the incident.
The Democrats who govern the state legislature, however, are now claiming that they want to curb the emergency powers Cuomo assumed at the beginning of last March’s pandemic.
DeRosa’s mother-in-law is Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in the Manhattan-based Southern District, who would usually pursue such an investigation, and Grassley said she could not engage in any probe.
