Why is Gov. Hochul reneging on her months-old pledge to get to the bottom of ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s care-home scandals? Where is the promised probe?
At the behest of hospital lobbyists early in the pandemic, Cuomo’s Health Department ordered nursing and adult-care homes to admit COVID-positive patients that hospitals wanted to dump. More than 9,000 wound up being pushed in, and statistical analysis suggests that led to hundreds if not thousands of added deaths.
Team Cuomo not only refused to take responsibility for care-home deaths, it actively covered up the true numbers and bent state laws to keep key facts hidden. It even withheld data from the feds.
Among other things, letting the truth out would have quashed Cuomo’s $5 million book deal monetizing his pandemic “leadership,” which suggests the coverup crosses the line for a corruption case even under the high bar the Supreme Court has set for such charges — if anyone properly investigates.
At the same time, per a new report, Cuomo & Co. “successfully coerced” the ethics review “with very minimal due diligence” of his book deal. The gov’s loyalists at the now-replaced state “ethics” panel even covered up that report, though inquiries from The Post led to it being posted by the new Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government’s website Friday afternoon.
Perhaps other lingering Cuomo loyalists have somehow stalled the care-home probe. Or maybe Hochul fears she’ll be tainted by Cuomo’s wrongdoing, perhaps because she didn’t immediately fire Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, who’s at the heart of the horror.
Whatever the reason, whomever she’s protecting, it’s an outrage. New Yorkers who lost loved ones want answers, and the gov promised to get them. She needs to follow through, no matter who looks bad in the end.
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