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NEW: Civil Rights Division alums tell me they’re really alarmed by what they see as DOJ’s political targeting of four Democratic governors: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
DOJ asserted in a press release, without citing any evidence, that state orders “may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.”
That’s a bold and highly questionable claim, and one that DOJ will never be able to back up. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
That’s a bold and highly questionable claim, and one that DOJ will never be able to back up. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
Here’s why. CRIPA, the law DOJ is citing here, only applies to PUBLIC nursing homes (think: veteran’s homes) which only represent a small sliver of America’s nursing homes. There are only like 1,300 public nursing home residents in all of Pennsylvania. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
CRIPA is much more commonly associated with investigations into prisons and jails, many of which have responded horribly to COVID-19 and are responsible for some of the nation’s largest clusters. But DOJ hasn’t announced any probes. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
The Bush administration launched a number of CRIPA investigations into public nursing homes. But the Trump administration hadn’t mentioned opening any until this fiscal year. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
What’s more, the Justice Department itself has done a poor job handling the coronavirus pandemic.
As one Bureau of Prisons officer told me, this is "the pot calling the kettle black. The banana calling the school bus yellow.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
As one Bureau of Prisons officer told me, this is "the pot calling the kettle black. The banana calling the school bus yellow.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
While DOJ's jurisdiction over nursing homes under CRIPA is limited, DOJ's rhetoric is not. A DOJ official wrote that the 50K people who died in NY/NJ "deserve to have an investigation to determine if their Governors are responsible for their deaths." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
“Here we are, 70 days before the election and right in the middle of the Republican convention, and they dropped four letters on four Democratic governors in particularly visible states? Please. This really does smell." -- @sbagen https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
“Using CRIPA to target Democratic governors on the eve of an election is nothing short of an abuse of the Civil Rights Division’s enforcement authority for political purposes,” says @jonsmithwlc https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75?hnr
A peak inside my reporting process in 2020:
More important context from the WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-seeks-data-on-covid-19-nursing-home-deaths-in-four-states-11598558780
“In normal times, one would not suspect political motivations behind a Justice Department investigation ― but we do not live in normal times,” says @vanitaguptaCR. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-doj-democratic-governors-cuomo-whitmer_n_5f46c038c5b6cf66b2b22b75
One thing I’d add: the DOJ press release generated a ton of inaccurate headlines and incomplete/false stories. Most reporters lack a working knowledge of CRIPA, and that helped the Trump administration here.
