Justice Department investigating Cuomo over congressional testimony on COVID, reports say

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a leading candidate for New York City mayor, is the subject of a federal criminal investigation for statements he made to Congress about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to multiple reports.

The New York Times first reported Tuesday that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice opened a criminal inquiry into Cuomo, a Democrat. Republican representatives accused him of lying during a hearing with a congressional subcommittee last year.

Cuomo has not been formally informed of the inquiry, according to his spokesperson Rich Azzopardi. The former governor is running for the Democratic mayoral nomination in next month’s primary election.

The reported DOJ investigation comes after the agency moved to drop a criminal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams, whom Cuomo is now seeking to unseat in the November general election where the mayor is planning to run as an independent. Cuomo is currently leading in the Democratic primary race, according to multiple recent polls.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., launched the investigation about a month ago, according to the Times. Since then, President Donald Trump has tapped former Fox News host and Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro to lead the office. Cuomo defeated her in the race for state attorney general in 2006.

Azzopardi said the investigation is politically motivated.

“We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now?” he said in a statement. “The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple — something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against.”

Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, first referred Cuomo to the DOJ in October before re-upping his request in April, after Trump had taken office. That followed Cuomo’s testimony to a subcommittee that was investigating New York’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes.

Comer accused Cuomo of lying to the subcommittee about his role in drafting a July 2020 state report that found infected staff members spread the virus in nursing homes. The report was issued to rebut criticism of a controversial state order that the homes couldn’t deny admission to discharged hospital patients solely because they were COVID-positive, which critics said led to more illness and more deaths among older New Yorkers.

Cuomo told the subcommittee he did not review a draft of the report before it was released, but testimony and emails from others showed he worked on editing the report. At times, Cuomo qualified his responses to Congress by saying he was struggling to recall events from years ago.

The decision to drop the Adams case came from the department’s upper reaches, which led some federal prosecutors to resign in protest. They accused Adams of helping with Trump’s immigration crackdown for the dismissal, but the mayor has denied the allegations.

“Investigations must take their course and I'm not going to do to him what others did to me,” Adams said of Cuomo at an unrelated press conference Wednesday.

Two progressive candidates in the mayoral race, city Comptroller Brad Lander and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani of Queens, expressed skepticism about the reported investigation Wednesday, but said it nonetheless showed voters should be skeptical about Cuomo, too.

“Andrew Cuomo’s record is one of corruption and deceit … and I do not trust the Trump administration to pursue justice,” Mamdani said after a rally with the United Auto Workers union outside City Hall. “I find the Trump administration’s actions to be dangerous.”

A Justice Department investigation, Lander said, would “make it harder for [Cuomo] to focus on the affordability crisis, on public safety and making City Hall run better.”

Brittany Kriegstein contributed reporting. This is a developing story and has been updated.