ALBANY – Despite allegations from Republicans and the state legislature that the Democratic Cuomo administration purposely withheld information about nursing home deaths during the pandemic, the governor, Monday, said the state did nothing wrong.
He said that at the same time as state lawmakers requested detailed information about those deaths, the federal Department of Justice also asked for information and despite GOP officials saying they weren’t notified, the governor said that is not so.
“The state legislators are wrong. Both houses were told that we had the DOJ request and that we were going to give precedent to a DOJ request; they were both told,” Cuomo said. “And yes, we gave the Department of Justice request precedence over the state legislators’ request.”
The governor did admit there was an information lag to the public because of the non-stop work on the pandemic and that, he said, caused a vacuum resulting in misinformation and conspiracy theories.
State Senator Sue Serino (R, Hyde Park) isn’t buying the explanation. She said the governor’s announcement on Monday “only makes it more clear that we need an independent investigation now more than ever.”
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the GOP challenger to Cuomo in the last gubernatorial election, said his “rambling, lying, incoherent finger-pointing press conference was just the latest chapter in his failed administration.”
Molinaro also called for an independent investigation into the reporting of nursing home deaths.
