Andrew Cuomo admits he saw COVID nursing home report — and may have amended it after DOJ probe into testimony

Mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo admitted Thursday that he not only saw a controversial report on nursing home COVID deaths while he was governor, but may have doctored the document – a bombshell confession that contradicts his sworn Congressional testimony.

“I did not recall seeing the report at the time. I did see the report, it turns out,” Cuomo told PIX11 News. “I’m sure if I read the report I made language changes.”

The mea culpa comes after the Department of Justice earlier this year reportedly opened a criminal investigation into whether Cuomo lied on Capitol Hill when he adamantly denied that he drafted, reviewed, discussed or consulted on a nursing home report on Empire State nursing home deaths.

The controversial report downplayed the consequences of Cuomo’s now-infamous March 25, 2020 directive that forced recovering COVID patients into senior care facilities without mandated testing to see if they could still infect others.

When he revoked the order, thousands of sick New Yorkers had been either admitted or readmitted into nursing homes.

Yet, the state underreported the deaths by nearly 50%.

Emails obtained by a congressional subcommittee show that Cuomo aides discussed his role in drafting the report, and include the former governor’s own handwritten edits.

But during his grilling by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in June 2024, he denied accusations of mishandling the COVID response and pointed to federal guidance as having hampered his administration’s response.

During private questioning by House members, Cuomo claimed he didn’t review a draft of the nursing home before it was released, and didn’t remember editing or speaking about it before it was released on July 7, 2020, according to a transcript.

“I do not recall reviewing,” Cuomo said.

When he was asked if he had edited the report, he said “I don’t recall seeing it.”

Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, took issue with the ex-governor’s new stance on Thursday.

“It’s remarkable that former Governor Cuomo now admits he read and edited the COVID nursing home report, only after facing a federal investigation for lying to Congress about it,” Comer (R-KY) said in a statement.

“Cuomo’s deadly order forcing COVID-positive patients into nursing homes led to the deaths of thousands of seniors,” he added. “He must be held accountable for the order, the cover-up and the lies.”

Relatives of nursing home patients who died as a result of the botched call also slammed Cuomo’s new “weasel answer” Thursday.

“I hope it’s a smoking gun,” said Vivian Zayas, who lost her mom to COVID inside a Long Island nursing home in 2021.

“I hope it’s the tip of the iceberg of the accountability that will come,” Zayas said. “Cuomo wants to be mayor, but he has selective memory.”

Peter Arbeeny, whose father died in another home during the pandemic, said Cuomo has “selective memory.”

“Cuomo said he wrote a 320-page book from memory, but can’t remember reading and writing a health department report,” Arbeeny told The Post,, calling the wannabe mayor “slick.” 

“They were suppressing a narrative about nursing home deaths because they were writing a book,” he said. 

Despite his new admission, a spokesman for Cuomo claimed the ex-governor has always been up front about the “politicized” controversy.

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi defended his boss and claimed in a statement that he has been consistent when addressing the controversy in the past.

“Despite attempts to paint this otherwise, Governor Cuomo’s comments are consistent with what he has said all along,” Azzopardi told The Post Thursday. “He testified truly and to the best of his recollection.

“He also offered, in good faith, to review any additional documents the [congressional] committee may have had in its possession to refresh his recollection, which they declined to present,” he said. “That’s because this was never about fact-finding. It was all politics from day one.”

Cuomo’s tenure in Albany was marred by allegations of sexual harassment and charges that his administration undercounted nursing home deaths during the pandemic — claims he has denied.

A former HUD secretary and New York State attorney general — and son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo — Andrew Cuomo was elected governor in 2011 and served until the mounting sex harassment claims forced him to resign in 2021.

He is considered the front-runner to replace Eric Adams as mayor of the Big Apple.