Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo seem to be two very bad apples off the same tree. Both politicians have refused to give up emergency powers that respond to the pandemic (though Cuomo’s were recently revoked) and ordered nursing homes last year to take infected patients during the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Radical left governors are being called out more each day.
While Cuomo’s nursing home scandal exploded after a former aide confessed to underreporting numbers last year, Gov. Whitmer is also facing multiple recalls after ordering long-term care facilities to not prohibit admission or readmission of residents based on COVID-19 results. Around 290 coronavirus patients were transferred into facilities that had uninfected residents. The facilities didn’t even separate infected and uninfected seniors, resulting in an estimated 2,000 residents and 21 staff members that died in nursing homes, 32% of all deaths.
New Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido is working on criminal charges against the Michigan governor for using the nursing homes as “hubs” during the pandemic. While the Attorney General said it was not a “proper basis” to open a criminal investigation, the U.S Attorney said they would look into his request.
“If we find there’s been willful neglect of office if we find there’s been reckless endangerment of a person’s life by bringing them in then we would move forward with charges against the Governor. Of course, we would. Nobody’s above the law in this state,” Lucido said.
Republican state lawmakers are also looking to revoke Whitmer’s pandemic powers within the $4.2 billion supplemental spending plan. It would require health officials to comply with testing and hospitalization benchmarks, as well as make their own science-based decisions about whether schools should be open.
The plan would limit the state health department’s orders to no more than 28 days, noting that the health officials should make decisions based on evidence rather than leaving the state vulnerable to the governor’s unilateral decisions. Other states have also voiced concerns on how long emergency health orders should last.
Whitmer’s office issued a statement and called Lucido’s investigation a “shameful political attack based in neither fact or reality.” They said the administration released an “incredible amount of data” and that they have followed federal requirements every step of the way.
Issues surfaced after Michigan’s health department director Robert Jordan abruptly resigned in a confidentiality agreement “in the interest of protecting deliberations among government officials.” He is set to receive a $155,506 payout and his departure has still not been fully explained.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania also copied New York and Michigan’s orders last year and ordered nursing homes to accept patients who had the COVID-19 virus, resulting in over 35,000 deaths in four states. Even President Biden’s assistant secretary of health, Dr. Rachel Levine, took her own mother out of a Pennsylvania nursing home last May while forcing nursing homes to continue accepting COVID-19 patients.
The Biden Administration continues to cover up their tracks of nursing home deaths and protect radical left governors from facing manslaughter charges. If this were an order under President Trump, there’d be a third impeachment trial.
