The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis may haul former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo or his ex-chief of staff Melissa DeRosa in front of Congress for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and for placing infected populations in nursing homes.
"It's quite possible that the committee will subpoena either [former] Gov. Cuomo or his former chief of staff Melissa DeRosa," Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told the New York Post.
Prior to the 2022 midterms, efforts from the GOP to investigate the COVID-19 pandemic were stymied by their House minority vote. But that is no longer the case.
"Now we're in the majority," Malliotakis said, "and now we're in a position to subpoena."
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuomo issued an executive order requiring nursing homes to take back patients who had been hospitalized for COVID-19 and were recovering. Ultimately, more than 15,800 New York nursing home residents died.
"The questions that we have," Malliotakis continued, "pertain to the decisions that were made to place individuals in nursing homes as opposed to utilizing the federal sites that had been set up, like the USNS Comfort ship or the National Guard setting up extensions of hospitals. Cuomo left with a lot of New Yorkers having legitimate questions about his role in the death of thousands."
The New York congresswoman said it was "quite possible" that criminal activity may have played a role in the nursing home fiasco.
"There was negligence, no doubt," Malliotakis noted. "Whether that was criminal, we have to drill down."
Nonetheless, Cuomo's spokesman Rich Azzopardi shrugged off the allegations, stating instead that "this is the same old Trump-era retread."
"We were following CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance and DOJ [the Department of Justice] twice looked at this, as did the assembly, the attorney general, and the Manhattan district attorney's office; and all found no there there," he stated. "It's incredibly sad that some continue to try to weaponize people's pain for their own craven politics."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.