New York lawmakers want Cuomo's Emmy vacated

A group of New York State lawmakers appealed to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Wednesday to vacate Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy as a sign of "solidarity" with the families impacted by the state's nursing home scandal.

"In a time when many people are disillusioned with our politics and our media, vacating Governor Cuomo’s Emmy would show the public that the academy stands against wrongdoing and injustice across the political spectrum," the letter read. It was signed by 10 assembly members.

"While these politicians might have enough free time to write blustery letters and issue self-important press releases, our focus remains squarely on vaccinating as many people as humanly possible and leading the state through this public health crisis," Cuomo spokesman Jack Sterne responded. "New Yorkers have seen the governor show up and fight on their behalf every day for nearly a year, and that’s why they support his actions to defeat COVID by a large margin."

The International Emmy Awards announced in November that the Democrat would receive its Founder's Award "in recognition of his leadership during the Covid19 pandemic & his masterful use of TV to inform & calm people around the world."

"The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure," Bruce Paisner, the academy's CEO, said in a press release. "People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back."

But, a report by the state’s attorney general’s office and the subsequent fallout have put his early decisions during the pandemic under new scrutiny.

The FBI and US attorney’s office in Brooklyn have begun an investigation into how his administration handled the state’s nursing home crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report Wednesday. Neither Cuomo nor any administration official has at this point been accused of any wrongdoing.

"As we publicly said, DOJ has been looking into this for months. We have been cooperating with them and we will continue to," Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi said in a statement.

Fox News' Thomas Barrabi, Joseph A. Wulfshon and the Associated Press contributed to this report