Janice Dean, a Fox News meteorologist whose mother-in-law and father-in-law died of COVID-19 in a nursing home along with thousands of other New York seniors, appeared at a House subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday where former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was grilled about his administration’s response to the outbreak. Dean, a frequent critic of Cuomo, shared her thoughts on his comments at the hearing with The Post’s statehouse reporter Vaughn Golden.
Tuesday’s hearing was largely the same as the one we saw when reports began emerging that then-Governor Cuomo had admitted positive COVID-19 patients to nursing homes and the questioning began.
Instead of expressing remorse or apologizing to his family, he blamed others and took no responsibility whatsoever.
We now have a range of documents, and I am grateful to the Subcommittee.
There are documents.
There is evidence that he lied and denied and he should be held accountable.
DC has done more work than Albany ever did.
Honestly, it’s an embarrassment for Albany that Washington DC is doing the job that New York should have been doing all along.
The fact that the subcommittee has to subpoena Governor Hookle and turn over important documents and information shows that this is an extension of the Cuomo administration and is just the same as before.
Instead of being open and transparent and trying to get to the truth of things, they still hide, deny and lie.
But I’m really proud of the work the committee has done.
It confirmed a lot of things we all suspected: COVID-positive patients were being admitted to nursing homes.
Thousands of them.
A report written by the state executive branch and Governor Cuomo in an attempt to clear themselves of all wrongdoing was released.
But text messages and documents have been circulating from his administration asking: “Should we move forward and admit our mistakes?”
Because this was a big mistake.
And he never admitted to that.
I mean, the evidence was there.
And he was there with his lawyer and he was passing around notes, which should tell you something about him having to be very careful about what he says because of the possibility of a lawsuit.
He really has no regrets.
I’ve said from the beginning: if he was going to call his family, apologize, say he made a mistake, and spend the rest of his career righting that mistake, we wouldn’t be here today.
Instead of saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry you missed your loved ones while bodies pile up outside your nursing home,” he’s chasing a $5 million book deal.
He couldn’t even look us in the face.
The subcommittee repeatedly asked him to take a moment to look at the faces of the families who had lost loved ones, but he never did so.
It told me he would never apologize or regret, and he really can’t.
Six months ago, a year ago, or even two years ago, I would have told you I would never get the answers or closure I am looking for.
But the fact that we’re here today, and that documents exist out there that are pending further investigation, as Chairman Brad Wenstrup told us, “this doesn’t end here.”
They’re going to continue to release new documents, postmortems, which New York hasn’t done yet. It’s pretty pathetic that they’re relying on Washington DC to release their New York state postmortems.
But I am pleased with the findings because the evidence was there for many of the things we were alleging, many of the things we were talking about, many of the things we were worried about. The documentation is there, and it is undeniable.
