Wenstrup, Malliotakis Threaten to Subpoena Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for Deadly COVID-19 Nursing Home Policies
WASHINGTON — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) are threatening to subpoena former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after he unfortunately failed to produce any documents or communications related to his state’s deadly COVID-19 nursing home policies. During the height of the pandemic, former Governor Cuomo made the medically misguided decision to mandate that nursing homes and long-term care facilities across New York “must admit” contagious COVID-19 patients. Former Governor Cuomo not only disregarded CDC and CMS guidance, but also seemingly covered-up the mortality rate resulting from his policies, and then attempted to shift political blame.
Following a hearing on the disastrous “must-admit” policies, the Select Subcommittee requested a transcribed interview with former Governor Cuomo and called for any information he retained related to the state’s pandemic-era, nursing home policy decisions. Chairman Wenstrup and Representative Malliotakis are pressing the former Governor to comply with Congressional oversight by October 17, 2023, or face a potential subpoena for documents, communications, and testimony.
“To date, we have not received a single document from you. The Select Subcommittee is comprised of physicians from both sides of the aisle and members who take our responsibilities seriously. Thousands of Americans dying is not, and should never be, partisan, as your spokesperson has publicly claimed,” wrote the lawmakers in their letter to former Governor Cuomo. “Contrary to your and your spokesman’s unfortunate statements, this investigation is the result of your clearly medically misguided decision to expose New York’s most vulnerable to COVID-19 by issuing the ‘must admit’ orders, which had predicable but deadly consequences for 15,000 nursing home residents. Any attempt to cover up the truth and conceal culpability is not acceptable to the American people.”
Further, Chairman Wenstrup is requesting Dr. Howard Zucker, the previous Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health — who currently serves as the Deputy Director for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — appear for a transcribed interview to discuss his involvement in issuing New York’s deadly nursing home directive.
Read the letters to former Governor Cuomo and CDC Director Mandy Cohen regarding former NY State Health Department Commissioner Zucker below:
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