Edited by: Fern Sidman

In a shocking admission on Thursday, it has been reported in the New York Post that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s secretary Melissa DeRosa said on a video conference call with state Democratic legislators that the governor and his staff had withheld the actual number of those who died in nursing homes from the Covid-19 virus.

DeRosa issued an apology of sorts and explained that the office in which she works “froze” out of fear the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned.

The Post reported that DeRosa explained that the Cuomo administration did not comply with a state legislative request in August for the precise numbers of those who lost their lives in nursing homes because she felt that former President Trump was politicizing the issue and looking to point fingers at his political opponents.

In an audio recording of the meeting that last for two hours, the Post reported that DeRosa said of then President Trump, “He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes.“He starts going after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, starts going after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, starts going after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.”

The NY Post reported that DeRosa said that in addition to attacking the aforementioned Democratic governors, Trump then threatened to “direct the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us.” It was then that she said, “and basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.”

She added that this event played a role in the decision to not reveal the actual numbers of those who died in New York nursing homes.

Between nursing homes and assisted living facilities, over 15,000 people died of Covid-19 due to exposure to recovering patients who were transferred to such facilities by the Cuomo administration and the New York State Health Department. It was the health department under the leadership of Howard Zucker who issued a directive on March 25h that nursing homes open their doors to Covid patients who were in hospitals.

The Post reported that DeRosa attempted to offer an apology for the egregious error and to acknowledge that state Democratic lawmakers were inconvenienced politically.

“So we do apologize,” DeRosa said, according to the NY Post report. “I do understand the position that you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intention to put you in that political position with the Republicans.”

One of the state legislators who had asked for the numbers of nursing home deaths in August was Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan). One the video call when DeRosa made the shocking admission, he rejected the apology offhand, according to the audio recording, as was reported by the Post.

Gottfried said, “I don’t have enough time today to explain all the reasons why I don’t give that any credit at all.”

Also unwilling to accept the expression of remorse from DeRosa was State Senate Aging Committee Chairwoman Rachel May (D-Syracuse), according to the Post report. May castigated DeRosa for the admission as she was harshly taken to task over the nursing home deaths issue during her re-election bid.

“And the issue for me, the biggest issue of all is feeling like I needed to defend — or at least not attack — an administration that was appearing to be covering something up,” May said, according to the Post report.

“And in a, in a pandemic, when you want the public to trust the public-health officials, and there is this clear feeling that they’re not coming, being forthcoming with you, that is really hard and it remains difficult.”

Last month New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report which was predicated on ongoing investigations into the matter of the nursing home deaths since March of 2020. The report concluded that “a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than the New York State Department of Health’s (DOH) published nursing home data reflected and may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.”

The report added that “the investigations also revealed that nursing homes’ lack of compliance with infection control protocols put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates.”

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is the only law enforcement agency in the state specifically mandated to investigate and prosecute abuse and neglect of residents in nursing homes. In early March, OAG received and began to investigate allegations and indications of COVID-19-related neglect of residents in nursing homes.

“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” said Attorney General James. “While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to offer transparency that the public deserves and to spur increased action to protect our most vulnerable residents. Nursing homes residents and workers deserve to live and work in safe environments, and I will continue to work hard to safeguard this basic right during this precarious time.”

DeRosa said that the Department of Justice was no longer focused on New York’s nursing home deaths. According to the New York Post report, DeRosa said, “All signs point to they are not looking at this, they’ve dropped it. They never formally opened an investigation. They sent a letter asking a number of questions and then we satisfied those questions and it appears that they’re gone.”

The Post reported that Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said, “We explained that the Trump administration was in the midst of a politically motivated effort to blame democratic states for COVID deaths and that we were cooperating with Federal document productions and that was the priority and now that it is over we can address the state legislature.”

“That said, we were working simultaneously to complete the audit of information they were asking for,” he added.

On Thursday night, a Fox News report said that New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik had issued a demand that Governor Cuomo and his “senior team” be prosecuted immediately on both the state and federal levels.

“Governor Cuomo, the secretary to the governor, and his senior team must be prosecuted immediately – both by the attorney general of New York state and the U.S. Department of Justice,” Stefanik said. “This bombshell admission of a cover-up and the remarks by the secretary to the governor indicating intent to obstruct any federal investigation is a stunning and criminal abuse of power.”

Fox News also reported that the video call in question prompted condemnations from New York Republicans at all levels of government – with the state party chairman Nick Langworthy calling for Cuomo’s impeachment and the state Assembly’s Minority Leader William Barclay demanding subpoenas and hearings.

“Instead of apologizing or providing answer to the thousands of New York families who lost loved ones, the governor’s administration made apologies to politicians behind closed doors for the ‘political inconvenience’ this scandal has caused them,” said New York State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, who demanded a “top to bottom” investigation and that Cuomo’s emergency powers be stripped until it’s sorted out, as was reported by Fox News.

On Friday, Cuomo is scheduled to meet with President Biden during a conference on COVID relief with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors Friday.

“It is the responsibility of the president to ensure the independence of the Department of Justice,” Stefanik said. “After the self-implicating admission by Gov. Cuomo and his staff, it is clear to every American that this investigation must go forward.”