Charlie LeDuff on suing Whitmer for info on COVID nursing home death counts: 'I've been asking for months'
Officials in New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania are under fire for their handling of coronavirus patients in nursing homes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Michigan investigative journalist Charlie LeDuff told Fox News on Thursday he is suing the state's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, after trying for months to get straight answers and statistics detailing the coronavirus-related death toll in nursing homes.
LeDuff told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that his request is "nonpartisan" and should be a simple process of checking a tabulation.
"You can't get them. I've been asking for months," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"What we want to know [is] what we know from the virus, [that] it kills the institutionalized elderly. That's who it took out. I want to know exactly what has happened."
REPORTER CHARLIE LEDUFF TO SUE MICHIGAN GOV. WHITMER OVER NURSING HOME CORONAVIRUS DATA
"[New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo institutes this [nursing home policy] in March. He issues blanket liability to the nursing homes. Whitmer follows two days later and does the same thing. Cuomo is keeping statistics and getting called out in New York. So by May, he ends the practice.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Whitmer doubles down in May and we're still doing it to this day."
LeDuff claims Michigan didn't keep track of COVID counts in state-regulated nursing homes until June, and didn't formally begin tabulating deaths until July.
In December, the reporter said, he received "death data" for other facilities, like adult foster homes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"What also happens in December is, a new number shows up, an asterisk called 'vital records deaths.' Those are people that died before when we weren't counting. I want to know when they died and where they died. I can't get it. They won't give it. So I'm suing."
Cuomo is not the only governor under fire for sending coronavirus-positive patients into nursing homes.
In Pennsylvania, the State House's Republican majority on Monday announced an investigation into Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's oversight of long-term care facilities, where according to PennLIVE, as many as 12,000 people have died.
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House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a Republican, appeared to echo LeDuff's concerns in his own state, telling the outlet that the caucus "believe[s] Pennsylvanians deserve better from their government when they are seeking answers as to why something so tragic has occurred, and they are not getting answers."
Now-former Health Secretary Rachel Levine, whom Republicans have lambasted for months on the issue, is President Biden's nominee to become Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services.