A New York ethics group voted to subpoena Gov. Kathy Hochul over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s use of volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics voted on Tuesday by a margin of 9-4 to approve a subpoena from Hochul’s office for “a list of so-called volunteers who were within the ambit of the executive order, whether any particular exemptions or other arrangements were made with regard to these volunteers with respect to perceived conflicts of interest, the employment status of volunteers, whether in fact they were true volunteers or were being paid by their employers other than the state of New York, and any other pertinent information with regard to conflicts of interest that were presented during the course of the response to the pandemic by the involvement of so-called volunteers.”
“I move the staff be directed to issue an informational subpoena to the executive chamber with regard to executive order 202.7 that was promulgated by former Gov. Cuomo and subsequently revoked by the Legislature,” Commissioner Gary Lavine told JCOPE.
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Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, dismissed the group’s vote.
“J-joke is gonna j-joke,” he said in an email to the Washington Examiner.
One of the JCOPE commissioners expressed concern about the possibly broad scope of the subpoena, requesting an estimate for the number of relevant volunteers.
“As I understand it, medical professionals, nurses, doctors, people that came from other places in the state or even out of state would fall under the ambit, to use Commissioner Lavine’s word, of this resolution. How many volunteers are we talking about?” Commissioner William Fisher asked.
When another commissioner said the figure was not available, Fisher said he believed it was “in the thousands.”
“Asking someone to collect employment information on all these folks who generously donated their time … seems absurd to me,” he said.
Commissioner Richard Braun echoed Fisher’s “valid concern” about the scope of the investigation, saying the subpoena was too broad in its records request for “people who wonderfully volunteered their time to assist us in our great time of need.”
But Lavine said their concerns were “edifying” in that the concern “underscores the point: We don’t know what transpired.”
“This information has been kept top-secret. For what reason? It’s been kept secret,” he continued. “It was kept secret for the Cuomo administration, and we’ll now test whether it’s going to be kept secret by the new supposed reform administration of Gov. Hochul. We don’t know who the volunteers were. We don’t know the number.”
JCOPE opened an investigation into Larry Schwartz, a volunteer adviser who oversaw vaccine distribution for the state, in July 2021. Schwartz made headlines in May for allegedly calling a handful of Democratic county executives to ask whether they would call for Cuomo’s resignation as the governor battled multiple scandals, and at least one county executive filed a complaint with Attorney General Letitia James’s office.
Schwartz denied linking vaccine access to political support for Cuomo, and Beth Garvey, Cuomo’s counsel, said in March of last year that “distorting Larry’s role or intentions for headlines maligns a decadeslong public servant.”
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Cuomo was accused of wrongdoing on several fronts, most notably when James released a bombshell report in August saying he sexually harassed at least 11 women while in office. Despite his denials of wrongdoing, Cuomo resigned on Aug. 24. After several legal victories, he struck a defiant tone, telling his supporters to “stay tuned.”
Representatives for Hochul did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
