The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is calling out former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for attempting to influence the testimony of one of his top aides, Jim Malatras, by calling and texting him around the time of Malatras’ appearances before the committee. In an exclusive Wednesday, the New York Post reports that the man formerly known as the “Love Guv” contacted his aide multiple times:
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Witness Jim Malatras said the 66-year-old ex-governor made him “uncomfortable” by calling and texting him as the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic probed the March 25, 2020 “must admit” order for nursing homes, according to new evidence in a subcommittee staff memo exclusively obtained by The Post.
The House COVID panel revealed in a memo earlier this month that Cuomo had reached out to Malatras to “check in” at least once during the course of their investigation.
Malatras confirmed to the COVID committee that the former governor “‘edited’ a notorious New York Department of Health report that deflated the true nursing home death count due to the order.”
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The committee revealed Cuomo “checked in” multiple times—always around the times Malatras was scheduled to appear:
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But in an addendum to that memo released Wednesday, text messages and a letter from Malatras show Cuomo reached out to his ex-aide three times since early 2021 — and always “within 48 hours of the Select Subcommittee taking a specific action in its nursing home investigation.
“This includes one action that was not public and only known by Mr. Cuomo and his counsel,” the addendum states. “The evidence in this Memo supports the finding that former Governor Andrew Cuomo acted in a manner consistent with an attempt to inappropriately influence the testimony of a witness and obstruct the Select Subcommittee’s investigation.”
The former governor, who’s now pondering running for mayor of NYC in 2025, forcefully denied the allegation of interference and called the panel a “MAGA clown committee.”
But Malatras described the messages as a “signal,” which frankly sounds kind of ominous to me:
In follow-up letter sent last week to the COVID panel, Malatras characterized the second text as “a type of flare — or signal — alerting me that he was aware that the House Select Subcommittee had requested that I testify on issues related to the administration’s handling of the Covid-19 response.”
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My, how the mighty have fallen. It was only a few years ago that Cuomo was the celebrated star of the Democrats, the man who claimed he expertly handled COVID, was writing books, appearing regularly on CNN with his also disgraced brother Chris, and thinking of higher office. One pandemic nursing home scandal and a sexual harassment allegation later, and he’s now busy trying to rehabilitate his image. We’ll see how that works out.