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LAKEWOOD – State Senator George Borrello is firing back after Governor Andrew Cuomo, last week, called a reporter’s question “stupid and offensive” addressing criticism of his $5.1 million book deal.
Borrello recently spoke with WNY News Now during a one-on-one interview. He explains that Cuomo’s book deal was reached in an effort to mask the outcome of his nursing home policies in relation to COVID-19.
“The Governor has to explain to us why, in the middle of the pandemic, he was manipulating and covering up the nursing home death data while he was signing a five million dollar contract for a book deal,” Borrello said. “This is a huge ethics issue. I can’t accept a $16 hamburger from someone. That’s an ethics violation. But he can get five million dollars for a book deal, and that’s not a problem.”
“And by the way, that’s five million reasons for him to cover up the scandal that happened in nursing homes.”
The Irving Republican says that there is legislation that is currently in both the State Senate and Assembly that would prohibit an elected official from publishing a book while in office.
“The bottom line is, no one should be writing a book as a sitting elected official about what is going on as they’re an elected official,” Borrello said. “There’s too much opportunity, like we saw with the Governor, to manipulate the data, to really cover up what is supposed to be open and transparent government and information. And that’s why this legislation is critically important. It’s an anti-corruption issue.”
Borrello also doubled down on his call for the Legislature to conduct an investigation into Cuomo and his team’s alleged cover up of the number of people who died of COVID-19 in nursing homes.
“We need to have an investigation. The Legislature needs to step up,” Borrello said. “Myself and others have introduced countless measures to have subpoenas issued so that folks like Dr. (Howard) Zucker from the Health Department, Melissa DeRossa from the Governor’s office and others who were involved in secret conversations and admitted that there was indeed a coverup. Those people need to come forward and they need to be accountable.”
Borrello says that, while Democrats are being publicly vocal against the Governor’s policies, they are actually allowing them to continue.
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