Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was questioned in Congress about his COVID blunders, as Republicans continue to target government officials whose conduct during the pandemic has been questioned.
The ex-Empire State chief appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Tuesday for a private interview.
The meeting comes just over a week after Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the panel that laboratory origins of COVID are a real ‘possibility’ and that six-foot social distancing and masking rules for children are not were based on established science.
Lawmakers later accused Fauci of lying to Congress during his testimony.
According to the committee, Cuomo tried to delay the meeting for nine months by dodging repeated requests to talk.
Only after subpoenaing the New York Democrat were they able to compel his testimony to learn more about his “deadly” nursing home policies.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will testify behind closed doors Tuesday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic about his handling of the COVID pandemic
“Today, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be held accountable before Congress for the deadly pandemic-era nursing home policies enacted under his watch,” said COVID Committee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R- Ohio, in a statement Tuesday.
“This transcribed interview for the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will delve deeper into the March 25 order than any other investigation has ever done and hopefully provide the answers so many devastated New Yorkers have been desperately seeking since 2020.”
“The families of the victims deserve accountability – not just for the disastrous ‘must give in’ policy, but also for the cover-up that followed,” Wesntrup said, adding that the “interview is an opportunity for the former governor to explain why closing his book deal was so important’. a higher priority than protecting nursing home residents in New York.”
‘Mr. Cuomo’s forthcoming, honest and transparent testimony is critical to improving our future public health responses and ensuring that deadly policies are never implemented again.”
Republicans on the committee held Cuomo down on his decision to instruct nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients.
During the questioning, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., asked Cuomo if he regretted his directive, sources familiar told DailyMail.com.
He said his only regret was that the directive had not been effectively communicated to the public, and even said he regretted requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients.
Cuomo continued to smear his Democratic staffers as bizarre conspiracy theorists, the source said.
He blamed the order on a New York State Department of Health employee who wrote the order, saying he did not know who the author was.
Medical workers tend to a patient outside the Harlem Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Harlem, New York, where at least 20 bodies were removed during the coronavirus pandemic and state data shows just five COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Protesters called on former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo to reopen New York amid a shutdown of all nonessential businesses due to the coronavirus pandemic
Lawmakers asked Cuomo about his pressure on former state appointees and New York officials to remain quiet about his March 25, 2020, nursing home “must yield” order.
They further questioned him about his lucrative book deal, which detailed his leadership during the pandemic and his involvement and knowledge of manipulating data tracking deaths in New York nursing homes.
To prepare for the interview, the committee held meetings with families affected by that decision, which critics say led to dozens of older Americans dying from the virus.
“After Mr. Cuomo issued deadly directives that forced nursing homes and facilities to admit potentially contagious COVID-19 patients, more than 15,000 New Yorkers died in these health care facilities,” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a physician, told DailyMail.com in a statement.
Many New Yorkers have become furious with Cuomo over his ‘must yield’ order, claiming it has led to many nursing home deaths
Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a press conference at Radio City Music Hall in New York
Family members of seniors who died of COVID-19 in nursing homes hold a rally demanding Governor Cuomo’s resignation or impeachment, March 25, 2021
a patient is loaded into an ambulance by medical responders outside the Cobble Hill Health Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
“Even New York’s Democratic Attorney General, Letitia James, released a scathing report on the Cuomo administration’s mishandling and cover-up to hide the true death rate.”
Meanwhile, the governor had the audacity to publish a self-acclaimed book on ‘leadership lessons’ from COVID-19. As a physician and former head of the Iowa Department of Public Health, I look forward to further ‘leadership lessons’ from Mr. Cuomo’s interview to prevent similar disastrous decisions during the next public health crisis.”
Cuomo arrived for his interview around 10 a.m