“Evidence and witness testimony gathered suggest Mr. Cuomo knowingly and willfully made false statements to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on numerous occasions.”
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been criminally referred to the Department of Justice by House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) over allegedly false statements Cuomo made to Congress regarding Covid-19 impact on nursing home deaths.
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Comer wrote that the "Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is examining the United States’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic," and that as part of the investigation, the committee "conducted a transcribed interview with the former Governor of the State of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, who was accompanied by counsel."
"During the transcribed interview, the Select Subcommittee believes that Mr. Cuomo made false statements about his involvement in and knowledge of the drafting of the July 6 Report," the letter added.
In a press release addressing the referral, the Oversight Committee stated, "Evidence and witness testimony gathered suggest Mr. Cuomo knowingly and willfully made false statements to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on numerous occasions about material aspects of New York’s COVID-19 nursing home disaster and the ensuing cover-up."
Previous reports have indicated that Cuomo as well as his top aides tried to prevent the dissemination of death rates in nursing homes during the pandemic. The office silenced New York state health officials and took other actions to hide the death tolls.
A summary of the criminal referral cited multiple comments from Cuomo in his interview, where the former governor answered “no” when he was asked if he was “involved in the drafting of [the July 6 Report] in any capacity.” The July 6 report was supposed to be an indepenent accounting for the death toll in nursing homes
The criminal referral said that this statement and others were false, and that "Cuomo provided false statements to the Select Subcommittee in what appears to be a conscious, calculated effort to insulate himself from accountability" in the nursing home deaths.
A the time of his transcribed interview, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said of Cuomo, “During closed-door testimony, Mr. Cuomo was shockingly callous when pressed to explain discrepancies in nursing home death counts, repeatedly deflected responsibility for the nursing home directive, and most egregiously, showed little remorse for the thousands of lives lost."
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