Cuomo’s ‘blame Trump’ story for the nursing-home coverup doesn’t remotely add uphttps://nypost.com/2021/02/12/cuomos-blame-trump-story-for-nursing-home-coverup-doesnt-add-up/To justify deceiving the world about the scale of the pandemic in New York’s nursing homes, Gov. Cuomo has turned to a familiar scapegoat: Donald Trump. The story doesn’t add up at all.
Cuomo’s administration recently and grudgingly admitted under court order that more than 15,000 residents of the state’s long-term care facilities died of COVID-19 over the past year — which is 6,000 more than the state had previously acknowledged.
In a private meeting on Wednesday, angry state legislators asked why this fact and others had been withheld from them and the public for so long. ...
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This statement — which DeRosa has confirmed to be accurate — is astonishing on many levels. She was effectively confessing to a months-long coverup involving both the governor’s office and the Health Department. She specifically cited concern about a federal investigation and political blowback. And she presented that as if it were a legitimate rationale for hiding public records from duly elected members of the Legislature ... .
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... DeRosa’s timeline makes no sense. The federal inquiry began Aug. 23, and Trump’s nursing home-related Twitter attack on Cuomo and other governors came in early September.
By that time, Team Cuomo had been stonewalling questions about nursing home deaths for months — dating back to May, when the Health Department quietly started omitting the deaths of residents who were shifted to hospitals before passing, which turned out to be roughly one-third of the toll.
At an Aug. 3 legislative hearing, Health Commissioner Howard Zucker acknowledged having the additional data, said it needed checking for accuracy and promised to provide it to lawmakers as soon as possible. It wasn’t until three weeks later that the Justice Department opened a preliminary inquiry (not an investigation) involving fewer than 30 facilities.
Second, officials concerned about an investigation would be expected to keep quiet on the subject. Instead, Cuomo and Zucker repeatedly claimed that New York’s nursing-home death toll was proportionally among the lowest of any state’s — which they knew to be based on a low-ball count and therefore false.
Third, Team Cuomo showed no intention of coming clean even after Trump was voted out of office. ...
IOW, covering up data to avoid Federal scrutiny came after covering up data to avoid State of NY and MSM scrutiny. Whether hiding data from the Feds or the state, it was dishonest and possibly illegal.
