Republican New York Representative Elise Stefanik is calling for an “independent investigation” into Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home policies.
Stefanik said Tuesday that an investigation is necessary after reports suggested that her state was undercounting the number of COVID-19-related deaths in assisted living facilities.
New York leads the country in nursing home deaths, with over 5,000 reported.
Today I joined my @NewYorkGOP colleagues in the House to call for a federal investigation of Cuomo's failed nursing home policies. NOW they admit they unethically changed the way they report nursing home deaths. An INEXCUSABLE tragedy for NY – NEED ANSWERShttps://t.co/pHY98zlTN2
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 15, 2020
Stefanik told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends“ on Tuesday, “New York has mismanaged how we have approached and how we’ve protected our seniors in our nursing homes. We knew, going into this, that our most vulnerable are our seniors and particularly in those assisted living facilities, whether they’re senior living facilities or nursing homes.”
Cuomo originally required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients, but the governor reversed that policy in early May.
“New York has mismanaged how we have approached and how we’ve protected our seniors in our nursing homes."@EliseStefanik doesn't believe NY's AG @TishJames can conduct a fair investigation.
https://t.co/XrRkSST1nJ— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 19, 2020
“New York, when compared to other states, took a number of negative actions that cost over 5,000 lives,” Stefanik said. “They also didn’t fully tell the public how many seniors’ deaths there were coming from nursing homes. So that reporting data, they didn’t count the hospital deaths when there was a positive case that was transmitted because of the senior nursing home.”
RELATED: Hawley: China Must Be Investigated for Role in Coronavirus Pandemic
I joined @foxandfriends live this morning to talk about:
Cuomo’s failed nursing home policy that led to massive loss of life and many grieving families in #NY21 and across New York
WATCH
pic.twitter.com/R5hZbRO81F
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 19, 2020
Stefanik also said that she does not believe a fair investigation will happen if directed by current Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“I’ve heard from families who are still grieving for loss of their loved ones and they deserve answers,” Stefanik said. “And it’s not just Republicans who are calling for this independent investigation. It’s Democrats as well.”
“It cannot be conducted by New York’s attorney general either,” she added. “It needs to be an independent investigation.”
“I’m calling for the Department of HHS to conduct this independent investigation, but I think it needs to come from the federal government,” Stefanik finished.
The post Republican Elise Stefanik Wants ‘Independent Investigation’ Into Cuomo’s Nursing Home Policies appeared first on The Political Insider.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Looking to cement an image of his well-funded Democratic challenger in the minds of voters, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell unleashed a TV ad portraying Amy McGrath as too liberal for Kentucky on abortion and border security and playing up her support for the impeachment of ...
The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday endorsed the confirmation of Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to be the nation’s top intelligence official.
The panel approved Ratcliffe as President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence in a straight party-line vote, 8 to 7, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's top Democrat, told reporters after a closed-door meeting. Ratcliffe would be the first permanent spy chief since Dan Coats stepped down last August.
The vote tally was much different from when the committee approved Coats in 2017, 14 to 2.
"I think there were many of the same concerns that were raised when he first came up in August," Warner told POLITICO.
While the nomination must still be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate, Tuesday’s vote marks a remarkable turnaround for Ratcliffe, whom Trump floated almost a year ago to oversee the country’s 17 intelligence agencies. The Texas Republican withdrew his name from consideration just days later in the face of tepid support from the Senate GOP, along with concerns about his thin resume and partisan attitude about government investigators.
Ratcliffe's withdrawal set off a monthslong merry-go-round at the leadership of the clandestine community, as the president selected counterterrorism chief Joseph Maguire to temporarily assume the DNI post. Maguire ruined his chances of becoming the permanent chief earlier this year after Trump heard he had authorized congressional briefings on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2020 campaign.
Trump then replaced Maguire as acting DNI with U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who possessed limited intelligence experience but began making a series of organizational changes to the country’s spy agencies. Those included last week's announcement that the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which is part of ODNI, would take over election security briefings for political candidates and organizations.
Ratcliffe, who was elected to Congress in 2015, sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees and was a member of Trump’s impeachment defense team. He drew national attention in a hearing last year where he accused former special counsel Robert Mueller of treating Trump unfairly during his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
"Donald Trump is not above the law. He's not. But he damn sure shouldn't be below the law, which is where volume 2 of this report puts him," Ratcliffe said at the time. He was referring to the volume of the Mueller report that declines to reach a conclusion about whether the president had obstructed the Russia investigation.
Ratcliffe worked hard at shedding the image of a partisan Trump acolyte during his confirmation hearing earlier this month.
“Let me be very clear: Regardless of what anyone wants our intelligence to reflect, the intelligence I provide, if confirmed, will not be impacted or altered as a result of outside influence,” Ratcliffe said. He added that he would give intelligence briefings to the president even if he knew Trump would disagree with the conclusions, or if he believed it risked his job.
Tuesday’s vote came the day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tapped Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to temporarily serve as the Intelligence committee’s chairman, after Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) decided to step aside while he faces an FBI investigation into his stock trades.
If confirmed by the full Senate, Warner said he hopes Ratcliffe "will execute the job in the way he described during the hearing." Warner added that it's "never more important than right now" to maintain the integrity and independence of the intelligence community.
Ratcliffe is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate in a vote likely to be held after Memorial Day, according to Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
House Democrats revealed to the Supreme Court Monday that they have not given up on their impeachment dreams as they seek secret grand jury material from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Talk about kicking a dead horse.
Douglas Letter, the House general counsel, said in a court filing that “The Committee’s impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing.”
“If this material reveals new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses,” Letter continues, “the Committee will proceed accordingly – including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment.”
I joined @foxandfriends live this morning to talk about:
WATCH
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) May 19, 2020
RELATED: Trump Calls Out ‘Faker’ CNN Reporter After She’s Caught Removing Mask at Press Briefing
This latest move reminds me of a bit by comedian Sebastian Maniscalco where he asks with utter amazement at people too dumb to comprehend their own actions, “Aren’t you embarrassed?”
We know Democrat lawmakers aren’t, but what about Democrat voters? Is there no shame in these endless efforts to overturn the 2016 election? Especially in light of what has come out in recent weeks.
The House Democrats told the Supreme Court they are now looking into “the possible exercise of improper political influence over recent decisions made in the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn prosecutions, both of which were initiated by the special counsel.”
Talk about having no concept of reality.
President Trump calls Flynn an “innocent man” after the Justice Department moved to dismiss its criminal case against him https://t.co/aHgrkodtAI pic.twitter.com/p1hHOrUnM8
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 7, 2020
RELATED: Trump Slams Obama Officials Who Prosecuted Michael Flynn: ‘Human Scum’ Committed ‘Treason’
Pursuing ‘improper political influence’ regarding the Flynn case, when clear-cut evidence showing Barack Obama’s FBI maliciously entrapped the former national security adviser, is next-level insanity.
Handwritten notes from the day Flynn was interviewed by the FBI show a questioning of the goal behind the interaction: “Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”
The context of the FBI’s goal proved too much for the Justice Department to argue that he was not entrapped by bad-faith actors.
Couple this with the revelation that every single witness interviewed during the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe admitted they had no evidence of Russia collusion – the very basis of Mueller’s witch hunt – and you begin to understand Democrats are not tethered to reality.
The Perpetual Impeachment? On Monday, the House filed a brief that with the Court that it is pursuing new articles of impeachment based on the Stone and Flynn cases- a position that blurs the line between oversight and impeachment inquiries… https://t.co/qi7UwUBDmr
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 19, 2020
President Trump, speaking on the news of Flynn’s malicious prosecution and the Obama administration’s efforts to concoct a Russian collusion narrative, called those behind it “human scum.”
“They’re scum and I say it a lot, they’re scum, they’re human scum. This should never have happened in this country,” he seethed.
“The Obama administration Justice Department was a disgrace and they got caught. They got caught. Very dishonest people. But much more than dis – it’s treason, it’s treason.”
Attorney General William Barr on Monday said, “What happened to the president in the 2016 election in the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history.”
So, why are Democrats still actively investigating the President for these same fake crimes when it is they who should be investigated and removed from their positions?
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