Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) will be allowed to keep the $5.1 million he made from his book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
“Cuomo scored six votes in his favor from members of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, including Commissioner Randall Hinrichs, a former Suffolk County district administrative judge who [New York Gov. Kathy Hochul] named to the panel shortly before its meeting in Albany,” the New York Post reported. “Other votes for Cuomo came from Commissioner James Dering, a Cuomo appointee who Hochul on Tuesday named JCOPE’s acting chairman, and Commissioner Juanita Newton, who was appointed by Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers).”
Notably, the last three votes were all from commissioners appointed by Cuomo before his resignation last month.
In addition to accusations of sexual harassment from 11 women, Cuomo barred nursing homes from refusing admission to people who were infected with COVID-19, essentially mandating the most vulnerable population to be constantly exposed to the virus.
In order to hide the resulting number of nursing home deaths from his policy, Cuomo directed his top aides to rewrite a report from state health officials.
“The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way,” the New York Times reported. “They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.”
Cuomo’s removal of the true number of nursing home deaths from the state health officials’ report occurred as he was reportedly forcing his staff to write his book on the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths,” the Times added.
Cuomo’s book describes how Cuomo “was relentless in his pursuit of scientific facts and data.”
Cuomo’s defense lawyer was paid for by New York taxpayers and costed $2.5 million.
“Taxpayers are being forced to shell out more than $900 an hour for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s lead defense lawyer, to help him try and fend off charges that he used staffers to help write a book detailing his handling of the pandemic and claims that he and aides hid from the public the true death toll among patients of nursing homes,” the New York Post reported.
“The $2.5 million deal, revealed in a contract made public through a Freedom of Information Request by The Post, was struck even though Cuomo sold the rights to his coronavirus memoir for $5.1 million and has around $17 million in his campaign war chest,” the New York Post continued.
