Ethics probe sought into COVID testing for Cuomo’s relatives

The New York attorney general’s office called on ethics investigators Thursday to look into reports that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others connected to him received special access to coronavirus tests a year ago, when such testing was scarce.

The office of Attorney General Letitia James, Cuomo’s fellow Democrat, issued a statement urging New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics to investigate after the reports were published in the

Times Union of Albany, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

“The recent reports alleging there was preferential treatment given for COVID-19 testing are troubling,” the statement read. “While we do not have jurisdiction to investigate this matter, it’s imperative that JCOPE look into it immediately.”

Walt McClure, a spokesperson for the ethics commission, said it could not comment “on anything that is or might be an investigative matter.”

Members of Cuomo’s family including his brother, CNN personality Chris Cuomo; his mother; and at least one of his three sisters were tested by top health department officials, some of them several times, according to the Times Union of Albany.

The testing of people closely tied to the governor was carried out by highranking state health officials, The New York Times reported. It mostly happened in the early days of the pandemic in March 2020.

The newspapers cited multiple people with direct knowledge of the testing but did not identify them.

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, did not explicitly deny that the administration had extended special treatment to people close to the governor but sought to dispute the notion. The governor’s office didn’t respond to a list of questions from The Associated Press, including whether the governor disputes the reports.

“In the early days of this pandemic, when there was a heavy emphasis on contact tracing, we were absolutely going above and beyond to get people tested,” Azzopardi said in a statement, adding that the effort included “in some instances going to people’s homes — and door-to doorin places like New Rochelle — to take samples from those believed to have been exposed to COVID in order to identify cases” and to prevent others from developing the disease.

Chris Cuomo was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late March of 2020. The CNN anchor was swabbed by a top state health department doctor who visited his Hamptons home to collect samples from him and his family, people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post, which did not identify them.

In a statement late Wednesday, CNN spokesman Matt Dornic said: “We generally do not get involved in the medical decisions of our employees. However, it is not surprising that in the earliest days of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, when Chris was showing symptoms and was concerned about possible spread, he turned to anyone he could for advice and assistance, as any human being would.”

The same doctor who tested Chris Cuomo, Eleanor Adams, now a top adviser to the state health commissioner, also was enlisted to test other Cuomo family members, two people familiar with the program told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post reported that “‘dozens of VIPs, some living in penthouses in Manhattan’ ” got access to rushed tests. Cuomo’s office didn’t directly respond to that report.