Andrew Cuomo's Top Aide Admits: We Hid The Numbers Of How Many Nursing Home Patients We Killed Because We Feared that Federal Prosecutors Would Use Them Against Us

Governor Cuomo's top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state's nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 -- telling them "we froze" out of fear the true numbers would "be used against us" by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned. Kyle Shideler @ShidelerK The legal term for this is "mens rea". 

The stunning admission of a cover-up was made by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because "right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football," according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting. 

"He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes," DeRosa said. "He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer." 

They really think that "Because Trump" constitutes a valid legal defense regarding falsification of public records. 

In addition to attacking Cuomo's fellow Democratic governors, DeRosa said, Trump "directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us." 

"And basically, we froze," she told the lawmakers on the call. "Because then we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation." DeRosa added: "That played a very large role into this." 

If Cuomo purposely hid nursing home data as his aide claims, it's not just impeachable, it's criminal.

GRTWT.