A spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told Breitbart News she will not investigate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over her role in the deaths of nursing home patients.
Michigan had a policy similar to New York that sent coronavirus-infected patients to nursing homes to recuperate. The infected patients then spread the virus to elderly, otherwise healthy residents, causing thousands to die.
New York Attorney General Leticia James (D) issued a report last week that found Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) administration “undercounted” the number of virus-related deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent:
The report also noted certain nursing homes had failed to meet “compliance with infection control protocols,” which “put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates.”
It was also noted in the press release AG James is “conducting ongoing investigations into more than 20 nursing homes whose reported conduct during the first wave of the pandemic presented particular concern.”
“Nursing homes residents and workers deserve to live and work in safe environments, and I will continue to work hard to safeguard this basic right during this precarious time,” James said.
In June, Breitbart News reported 34 percent of coronavirus-related deaths in Michigan were in nursing homes.
At the time, Whitmer defended the policy.
“There hasn’t been one nursing home that has taken a COVID-19 patient that they didn’t think that they were prepared to care for,” Whitmer told WXYZ.
Breitbart News asked Nessel’s office if the attorney general would investigate Whitmer’s administration and her handling of nursing home patients.
“We generally don’t comment on whether we’ll conduct investigations, and typically those only occur when we receive a complaint,” spokesman Ryan Jarvi said.
At least one Democrat representative criticized Whitmer’s executive order requiring nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients.
“To return seniors into an environment, seniors with the virus, still recovering from the virus, into an environment with, well, seniors, just didn’t seem — it’s not a good idea,” state Rep. Leslie Love (D-Detroit) said.
“That would break my heart, because I’ve been on the front lines of this, trying to make sure our seniors — my mother, your mother, anybody else’s mother — does not get sick and die from this, particularly if they’re in a nursing home,” she said.
Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said during his campaign that he would prosecute Whitmer for the deaths in his county.
Last week, he told Breitbart News:
With 83 county prosecutors in the state of Michigan, I plan to ask its representative body, PACC-PAAM to assemble a Blue Ribbon Panel of Prosecuting Attorneys to review COVID-19 [coronavirus] cause of deaths of otherwise healthy persons confined to Nursing Homes and then exposed to COVID-19 active residents ordered transferred to their facilities under Executive Orders that appear to have been concluded by our State Supreme Court to have been unconstitutional acts, which were arguably not shielded by sovereign immunity or executive privilege. The public deserves nothing less.
He did not put a timetable on when that may happen.
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays–download full podcast episodes. Follow him on Parler.
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