July 23, 2021
Democrats Still Trying to Cover-up Whitmer’s Nursing Home Deaths
Yesterday, it was announced that President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice would drop its investigation of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s nursing home death scandal. This striking move to drop an investigation into Whitmer’s decision to mix COVID positive patients with uninfected populations, and then under-report those numbers, is an injustice to the thousands of Michigan families whose loved ones died as a result of this destructive policy.
This isn’t the first time that Whitmer has been bailed out by her Democrat allies. Over a year ago, as nursing home deaths skyrocketed, Whitmer was given cover by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who attempted to pass off criticism of Whitmer’s policy as partisan politics. Then, this past March, Nessel helped Whitmer dodge being held accountable when she refused to investigate the deadliness of her nursing home policy and the alleged underreporting. The Detroit Free Press reported:
“Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel will not launch a criminal investigation into the impact of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s nursing home policies and whether they exacerbated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic…
The Republicans and other critics point to a policy that, at least at the start of the pandemic, required nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients previously hospitalized to return to their homes, even if they were still contagious. They argue the policy may have directly endangered other, vulnerable seniors living in these facilities.”
Nessel’s decision to politicize such an important issue is out of step with what her Democrat counterpart in New York did, when faced with the same type of nursing home scandal from Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo. In that case, the state Attorney General investigated the matter, and found Cuomo severely undercounted nursing home deaths. Democrats in Michigan are doing everything possible to protect Whitmer, the Cuomo of the Midwest, from accountability.
But while leading Democrats have chosen to give Whitmer a pass, Republicans in the State Legislature have taken the deadly ramifications of Whitmer’s nursing home scandal seriously, and early this month the State Auditor General agreed to their request to mount a full inquiry into the true impact of this disastrous policy. Despite Democrats’ repeated attempts to cover-up the deadly mistakes of Governor Whitmer and her administration, Michiganders can take heart knowing that we will soon get to the bottom of this nursing home disaster, and Whitmer will be held accountable.
“Governor Whitmer will not be able to escape accountability for her deadly nursing home scandal, and this partisan move by the DOJ is only prolonging the inevitable,” said Eric Ventimiglia, executive director for Michigan Rising Action. Ventimiglia continued, “If the state Auditor General provides proof of undercounted deaths by the state when he releases his report in the coming months, Whitmer will have to answer for her disastrous nursing home policy and the cover-up that took place to hide the truth from Michiganders.”