Jazz wrote about this story last week. Today the NY Times has a follow-up offering more detail about the evidence that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo lied when he claimed he had neither seen nor edited a state health department report dealing with the spread of COVID-19 to New York nursing homes. 

Cuomo was subpoenaed to testify before a closed-door congressional committee hearing earlier this summer. During that testimony, Cuomo repeatedly claimed he had never seen the report in question.

During Mr. Cuomo’s private questioning, a lawyer representing the committee’s Democratic members noted that one top aide had testified that Mr. Cuomo had reviewed a draft before it was released. “Is that true?” the lawyer asked.

“I did not,” Mr. Cuomo replied, according to a transcript of the questioning. “Maybe it was in the inbox, but I did not.”

Asked a second time if he'd seen, edited or discussed the report prior to publication, Cuomo allowed that someone might have mentioned it to him.

“Not that I recall,” he replied. “I may have been, because it’s a very interesting finding. They probably came to me and said do you want to hear something interesting.”

Cuomo himself doesn't use email so there are no smoking gun emails from him about the report. However, his aides do use email and they specifically discussed his edits to the report at the time.

“Governor’s edits are attached for your review,” Mr. Cuomo’s assistant Farah Kennedy wrote in an email sent to several members of the ex-governor’s senior staff on June 23, 2020. “The smaller text in the beginning is from your original document. He replaced your paragraph on page 3 beginning with ‘But, like in all fifty states, there were Covid-positive cases.’”

Mr. Cuomo apparently inserted language to underscore how “community spread among employees or possibly visitation by family and friends were relevant factors” that contributed to nursing home deaths.

Another message from one of Cuomo's aides asked staff to print two copies of the report and drop them at the "mansion," meaning the governor's residence. The final report was issued a week later.

Following his closed door hearing earlier this summer, there was an open hearing held last week on the same topic. Cuomo defended himself but the hearing was seen as a blow to his potential political comeback, something he has apparently been thinking about for a while now.

The public hearing by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic came as Cuomo is considering a bid for elected office, either running for mayor of New York City or a return to Albany as governor.

His appearance underscored the potential weaknesses of a Cuomo comeback — a controversial record of handling a public health crisis that initially catapulted him to national celebrity, but presaged his fall from power. It was followed by the sexual misconduct allegations, which Cuomo has steadfastly denied...

A self-acknowledged micromanager, Cuomo nevertheless denied playing an active role in issuing a controversial order requiring that nursing homes not turn away Covid-positive patients. He has also denied providing input on a July 2020 state report that was later found to have undercounted nursing home deaths.

Cuomo's story just isn't credible but he seems to think that if he continues to blame everything on former President Trump he'll be given a pass. I'd like to think that this wouldn't fly but maybe it would in New York City. We'll have to wait and see what he decides to do.