The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress about nursing home deaths that took place in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from the New York Times.
The investigation into Cuomo — who is currently attempting a political comeback with a New York City mayoral campaign — was launched about a month ago by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia. The office was led at the time by Ed Martin, who was recently reassigned within the DOJ and replaced by Jeanine Pirro after Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) refused to support his nomination.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee previously asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue criminal charges against Cuomo for making “criminally false statements” during a June 11, 2024, interview with the House COVID subcommittee, two sources familiar with the investigation told the New York Times.
“Overwhelming evidence uncovered by the Select Subcommittee proves that Mr. Cuomo reviewed, edited, and even drafted portions of a purportedly independent and peer-reviewed New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Report that was used to combat criticism of his Administration’s pandemic-era nursing home policies,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) wrote in an April 25 press release.
The panel accused Cuomo of presiding over a July 6, 2020 audit that undercounted the total number of deaths in New York senior care facilities during the pandemic by 46 percent.
Comer’s initial criminal referral was denied by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2024, though the committee asked Bondi to revisit the matter back in April.
In a statement to the New York Times Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said he was unaware of any investigation and slammed the suggestion as “lawfare and election interference.”
“We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now?” he said in a statement. “The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple — something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against.”
The statement continued, “Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political.”
The DOJ has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the probe as of this report.
