The government did not state Andrew Cuomo’s office that the Department of Justice rejected Freedom of Information requests from The Post and other media outlets about COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes – claiming that doing so was “personal.” Form will invade “privacy. ”
“Please be advised that parts of the records responding to your request be omitted
Disclosure shall be made if disclosed, in accordance with Public Officers’ Law ยง 87 (2) (b)
The Governor’s Record Access Officer Jacqueline Klemmer reacted to The Post.
The Associated Press received a similar denial letter.
Klemmer did not reveal whose privacy might be attacked, or how. The Post did not request any personal ID information of nursing home residents. He also said that the records sought were exempted from public disclosure because the release would “interfere with law enforcement investigations.”
The Department of Justice requested last year that New York and other states change statistics about COVID-19 infections and deaths inside nursing homes.
The US Attorney’s Office and the State Assembly Judiciary Committee in Brooklyn are also investigating claims that the Cuomo administration had knowingly or lied about the number of nursing home residents killed by COVID.
Federal prosecutors exclusively revealed in February after The Post that Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRassa, privately admitted to Democratic lawmakers that her administration attributed COVID-19 to total nursing home deaths due to a pending federal investigation stopped.
A few weeks ago, state Attorney General Letitia James released a stinging report that found that Cuomo officials reduced COVID-related deaths of residents of New York nursing homes by more than 50 percent. Within the hour, Howard Zucker, a defensive state health commissioner, added thousands to the death toll.
It was later revealed that Cuomo’s office removed the High Nursing Home Death Count from a Health Department report about handling the state’s nursing home during the early months of the epidemic.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that Cuomo’s office declined an almost identical request for COVID-related nursing home data that state officials had provided to the Department of Justice.
In February, the Post requested “any correspondence, memorandum, documents, minutes of meetings between the executive room and the US Department of Justice about New York’s nursing homes and the coronavirus epidemic.”
The request specifically states “any information about the deaths of residents of nursing homes from COVID-19, including reporting, methods, and any questions related to any deaths related to nursing homes in COVID-19, which the U.S. Department of Justice Was handed over to. “
Cuomo claimed in February that he supported the release of the record.
“Look, I wouldn’t have a problem with this,” said Cuomo, a former state attorney general who now faces multiple COVID and sexual harassment investigations.
“I’ll have the lawyers talk to the DOJ, but I won’t have a problem with it.”
Under state law, law enforcement agencies are permitted to withdraw records related to ongoing criminal investigations. But in this case, the governor’s office has implemented an exemption for data initially compiled for public health purposes that was sent to the civil division of the Department of Justice.
New York is not the only state to reject his response to the Department of Justice’s public inquiry, AP report.
Pennsylvania Government. Tom Wolf’s office also said it could not provide information because the Justice Department “did not close the investigation.”
A state judge also ordered Cuomo and the Department of Health to release COVID nursing home statistics after concluding that they had refused to release the information sought for the Public Center for Public Policy.
After months of stonewalling, Cuomo admitted that it took so long to release the data was a mistake, but claimed the delay was not an attempt to hide the death toll.
The administration claimed that this did not lead to a full early release as hospitals needed time to verify how many nursing home patients died after being transferred.
In its document requests, the Department of Justice asked for the number of residents, staff and visitors contracting COVID-19 or the number of people admitted to each nursing home after treatment for COVID-19 in the hospital.
The governors of Democratic states claimed they were being unfairly targeted by the Trump-led Justice Department.
Michigan Chief Legal Counselor Mark Totten said, “The US Department of Justice has a long tradition of exercising its substantial power in a fair and non-partisan manner, and we are diverting your letter from that tradition.”
With Associated Press
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