Cuomo testifies before House committee that accused him of COVID-19 cover up

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo began testifying publicly Tuesday before a congressional subcommittee critical of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as it began to spread through the state's nursing homes in 2020.

Members of the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a report ahead of Cuomo's testimony that accused the Democrat of staging a “cover up” to hide mistakes that endangered nursing home residents.

“The Cuomo Administration is responsible for recklessly exposing New York’s most vulnerable population to COVID-19,” U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, the Ohio Republican who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, said in a statement Monday.

Cuomo's spokesperson accused the committee of wasting taxpayer dollars on an investigation that found “no evidence of wrongdoing.”

“This MAGA caucus report is all smoke and mirrors designed to continue to distract from Trump’s failed pandemic leadership,” said Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi. He called it a “sloppy, half baked partisan screed built upon uncorroborated, cherry picked testimony and conclusions not supported by evidence or reality.”

Cuomo resigned from office in August 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denies.

Cuomo was widely seen as a reassuring figure in the early months of the pandemic, but his reputation suffered after revelations that his administration released an incomplete accounting of the number of deaths at nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Critics have also zeroed in on a directive issued in March of 2020 that initially barred nursing homes from refusing to accept patients just because they'd had COVID-19.

The order was issued to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed