Democratic New York State Assemblyman Ron Kim called for Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be impeached over the ongoing nursing home scandal in a Monday op-ed for Newsweek.
Kim, who accused Cuomo of threatening to “destroy him” over a phone call last week, has come out in support of impeaching Cuomo, the New York Post reported. (RELATED: New York Democrats Look To Censure Andrew Cuomo)
Democrat Ron Kim calls for Cuomo to be impeached over nursing home scandal https://t.co/gaikZtygk4 pic.twitter.com/cBIcXXt4ct
— New York Post (@nypost) February 22, 2021
“It is time to be brave, to hold him accountable, to investigate his cover-up of nursing home information,” said Kim in an op-ed for Newsweek.
In his op-ed, Kim accused Cuomo of covering up thousands of nursing home COVID-19 deaths and bullying those that wouldn’t cover up his “crime.”
Kim cited a call between Cuomo’s top aide Mellissa DeRosa and state senate Democrats, in which DeRosa reportedly admitted the state hid nursing home data from the federal government, as evidence of such a crime.
He further claimed Cuomo tried to pressure him into releasing a statement saying “that Melissa DeRosa said there was a federal investigation and they had to deal with that first” during their call, according to the Post.
“He wanted me to deny what I heard on the call. “Are you an honorable man?” He yelled. “Who do you think you are?” This, too, was an attempt to rope me into his scheme,” Kim in the Newsweek op-ed.
‘Those of us who have worked with Cuomo are familiar with his tendencies. There is a long pattern of abusive tactics that the governor deploys when the public gets too close to learning the truth: cast a net far and wide, compromise as many unwitting accomplices, threaten retribution, then berate you for having the temerity to stand up. I call this Cuomo’s Predatory Inclusion Syndrome. And I won’t be party to it,” said Kim in his op-ed.
Kim also slammed Cuomo for granting nursing homes “corporate immunity” and implied this was part of a greater political pay-to-play scheme.
“The truth behind the obfuscation and lies is this: The governor snuck a toxic corporate immunity clause in the 2020 budget on behalf of his top campaign donor, the Greater New York Hospital Association. You don’t need a PhD to understand that handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards to for-profit nursing homes in the middle of a pandemic will lead to more deaths,” said Kim in his op-ed.
“It is time to undo the bad policies that led to unnecessary deaths. And it is time to start the impeachment process,” said Kim.
Ron Kim is the first Democrat to publicly support impeaching Cuomo.
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