The Justice Department’s civil rights division is demanding data from the governors of four states, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, as part of a preliminary investigation into whether their nursing home policies caused spikes in Wuhan coronavirus fatalities.

From Daily Caller:

“New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients to their vulnerable populations, often without adequate testing,” the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Led by Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband, the civil rights division will make the request for nursing home data from the governors as it considers whether to open an investigation under the “Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.”

“The Civil Rights Division seeks to determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents,” Dreiband said.

Cuomo has come under the most scrutiny because of his March 25 order requiring nursing homes to take positive virus patients and the great number of deaths in New York. The current official count from New York is that over 6,000 nursing home patients have died because of the virus.

But the count may actually be much higher because the state changed how they were counting the deaths after Cuomo and the order came under scrutiny in May. Thereafter they didn’t count the deaths of people as “nursing home deaths” if the person died in the hospital, even if the person may have gotten the virus in the nursing home. That of course would reduce the number. By how much is not clear.
According to one count the real number was more likely between eleven and twelve thousand, according to the NY Post.

But the problem is we still don’t know the real number and Cuomo is still stalling on it. This may finally prompt some answers and get real investigation of what was done.

Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, whose mother-in-law and father-in-law both died of the virus in a nursing home after the order, welcomed the DOJ’s decision to finally look into the orders and the policies.

@GovWhitmer @GovMurphy @GovernorTomWolf pic.twitter.com/iJC1WWP1jI

— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) August 26, 2020

Oh my goodness. I’m in tears. https://t.co/I5IVsAQVDV

— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) August 26, 2020

Our bipartisan calls for a federal independent investigation of Cuomo’s fatal nursing home policies causing the deaths of tens of thousands of vulnerable NYers led to this important action taken by the U.S. Department of Justice 👇 https://t.co/iAcVH8TGBL

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) August 27, 2020

Cuomo’s response to the announcement?

Responding to @TheJusticeDept request for documents related to deaths in New York State run nursing homes due to #COVID19, @NYGovCuomo says, “this is all politics. Mr. Barr cannot spell the word ‘justice.’ He doesn’t even feign to be impartial.”

— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) August 27, 2020

That’s not going to stop the DOJ from getting the information.

On behalf of all the families that want answers about the thousands that died in NY nursing homes, I believe @NYGovCuomo has forfeited his credibility as a leader. Writ large. https://t.co/C9eUgYIWY4

— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) August 27, 2020