WASHINGTON — Today, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) announced a subpoena to compel the New York State Executive Chamber, now led by Governor Kathy Hochul, to hand over documents related to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous COVID-19 pandemic response and nursing home policies. During Chairman Wenstrup’s opening statement at today’s hearing with Mr. Cuomo, he confronted the former Governor with evidence of New York’s Executive Chamber repeated and unjustifiable withholding of documents related to the Cuomo Administration’s nursing home disaster.

Since May 2023, New York’s Executive Chamber has employed every strategy possible to avoid providing the Select Subcommittee with responsive documents. In its initial attempt to evade transparency, the Executive Chamber deflected responsibility to the New York State Department of Health. Next, the Executive Chamber tried to distract from its noncompliance by providing hundreds of thousands of documents that were often incomplete, substantially redacted, or available publicly. In a final effort to withhold information, the Executive Chamber begrudgingly provided a privilege log — only after it was requested by the Select Subcommittee — that offered numerous illegitimate privilege claims. This repeated evasion of accountability raises questions about Governor Hochul’s role in covering-up for the failures of her predecessor — Andrew Cuomo.

“The Executive Chamber withheld numerous other critically important documents related to the Order, including an email thread occurring between April and May 2020, entitled “Draft Nursing Home Plan.”  Interestingly, the Executive Chamber also withheld documents and communications related to the former Governor’s decision on May 11, 2020, to require readmitted and admitted residents to have proof of a negative COVID-19 test prior to being discharged to nursing homes, despite the former administration’s insistence that the May 11th Directive—as you refer to it in the privilege log—did not supersede the Order. Accordingly, these documents are clearly responsive to the November 6 Letter and must be produced in their entirety,” Chairman Wenstrup described in the subpoena cover letter.

Read the Select Subcommittee’s cover letter here and subpoena here.

Watch former Governor Andew Cuomo’s testimony before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic here.

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