There’s something shady going on in Michigan involving its Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the exiting state health department director Robert Gordon, who received hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer dollars for a reason the public hasn’t been made aware of yet.

According to The Detroit News, Whitmer’s administration paid Gordon the pile of cash in a deal that required silence from both parties:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration agreed to pay former state health department director Robert Gordon $155,506 in a separation deal that also required the two sides to maintain confidentiality about the circumstances that led to his abrupt departure.

The agreement is the clearest evidence yet that the split between Gordon, a central figure in the state’s response to COVID-19, and Whitmer was not amicable, and it shows the Democratic administration used taxpayer funds to ease his departure.

On Feb. 22, one month after Gordon resigned without explanation, he and Mark Totten, Whitmer’s chief lawyer, signed the four-page agreement. The state agreed to pay Gordon a total that represents nine months of salary and health benefits, and he released the state from any potential legal claims.

Why Gordon stepped down on January 22 a mere eight hours after he signed an epidemic order to lift the suspension on indoor dining is still a mystery as both parties refuse to say. Financial payouts between government officials that include non-disparagement clauses and legal protections aren’t new, but this one, in particular, seems a bit suspicious given the situation Whitmer finds herself in.

As of this writing, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is embroiled in his own scandal revolving around some 15,000 dead due to his decision to put elderly New Yorkers in unsecured nursing homes. Democrats are currently making sexual harassment claims against Cuomo the center of the story, seemingly as a distraction. Making everyone pay attention to sexual harassment claims would allow them to contain the much larger issue of the thousands dead because if that’s focused on Cuomo then people will start asking about Whitmer as well, seeing as how she’s guilty of doing the exact same thing.

(READ: Gretchen “Cuomo” Whitmer Policy Placed COVID-19 Infected Patients in Nursing Homes)

It’s unclear if any of these payments for secretive reasons have anything to do with the fact that Whitmer is also guilty of putting healthy elderly Michiganders in unsecured nursing homes, resulting in 34 percent of Michigan’s COVID-19 deaths taking places in these nursing homes. What’s more, Michigan’s Attorney General made it clear that he will not be investigating Whitmer’s part in the debacle.

Between the lack of investigation, secretive payouts, and a large percentage of elderly dead Michiganders in nursing homes due to policies that mimicked New York’s, it’s clear that something is being hidden. Cuomo was guilty of hiding the number of people his policies actually killed in order to protect his reputation. The question is, is Whitmer doing the same?