Who is Charlie LeDuff? Michigan journo suing Gretchen Whitmer says Covid-hit seniors treated 'like laundry bags'
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer is in danger of seeing her story going the way of her New York counterpart Andrew Cuomo. The latter has faced a massive backlash over charges of hiding data related to Covid-19-related deaths in nursing homes and recently, an award-winning investigative journalist planned to sue Whitmer for refusing to “to turn over COVID death data and accurate nursing home numbers to the public”.
Charlie LeDuff, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for his work with The New York Times, said on Twitter that he and Mackinac Center Legal Foundation (MCLF)-- a Michigan-based free-market think tank -- were preparing a lawsuit against the governor. On Thursday, March 11 -- two days after LeDuff and the MCLF -- sued the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the journalist told ‘The Story’ on Fox that the state was still declining to provide relevant data on coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes.
We are preparing a lawsuit against Gov. Whitmer of Michigan.
— Charlie LeDuff (@Charlieleduff) February 27, 2021
She refuses to turn over COVID death data and accurate nursing home numbers to the public.
All the way to the Supreme Court, Madam.
Thanks to the@MackinacCenter, who has agreed to take our case.https://t.co/sH3BtfZ32m pic.twitter.com/le65xN83SP
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LeDuff told ‘The Story’ host Martha MacCallum that while Cuomo stopped the act of allowing Covid-19 patients to co-mingle in NY nursing homes eventually, Michigan was still continuing with the same. “In and around the country, about 1/3 of all covid deaths are in long-term care facilities. Nursing homes, homes for the aged and adult foster care. In Michigan, it’s 38 to 40%,” LeDuff said.
'Ambulances ping-ponging people'
Attacking Gretchen, LeDuff said the former has to come clean on the entire matter. “She did exactly what Cuomo did except for the fact that we’re still co-mingling,” LeDuff said, adding while pointing to a senior living facility behind him: “That’s one of the hubs there.” At that particular center, according to LeDuff, ambulances were seen “ping-ponging people” in and out of the home when the pandemic was wreaking havoc.
“[They were] handling them like bags of laundry -- and we don’t have a true accounting of how many people died because like Cuomo, we got a hospital count and we have a nursing home count, we now know. I’m not taking anybody’s word. I'm here for the people,” the investigative journalist added. Nearly 30 million people have been hit by the virus in the US with the death toll crossing 530,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“Cuomo stopped doing this in May when the data showed it was a scourge in the nursing homes. The governor [Whitmer] doubled down in May. We didn’t keep COVID case track in the nursing homes until June and we didn't keep death records until July when the federal government mandated it,” LeDuff added.
Backing his plan to sue Gretchen, LeDuff said the people have a right to know. Last week, in an email to Fox News, he said: “We shut down the entire economy, we interrupted our children's lives, all in the name of protecting the most vulnerable. We now know this was the institutionalized elderly. If we could not protect them, at the very least we deserve an explanation from Madam Governor.”
Whitmer, 49, responded to the charges against her earlier this week. According to a report in Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV, the Michigan governor defended herself saying: “I’m proud of the work that we did. We can parse through different angles of statistics and compare ourselves with other states. I think that it sometimes can be a fool’s errand, because the way that we are congregating data varies from state to state.”
But it seems Whitmer’s problems could only multiply. A Michigan prosecutor uttered strong words over the Gretchen administration’s treatment of Covid-19 patients in the nursing homes. Former state Senator and Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido told WXYZ Detroit: “If we find there's been willful neglect of office, if we find there's been reckless endangerment of a person's life by bringing them in [to the homes], then we would move forward with charges against the governor. Of course, we would. Nobody's above the law in this state.”
Also, several Republican state legislators recently called for a "full investigation" into Whitmer’s actions in letters written to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and former acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson.
Who is Charlie LeDuff?
LeDuff worked formerly at the New York Times, the Detroit News and on Detroit’s Fox 2 News. He has also produced ten-part television series called “O” for Discovery Times. LeDuff has covered the war in Iraq, crossed the border with Mexican migrants and chronicled a Brooklyn firehouse in the aftermath of 9/11. He has written a New York Times bestselling book, 'Detroit: An American Autopsy'. LeDuff has also written 'Us Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man', and 'Work and Other Sins: Life in New York City and Thereabouts'. His book 'Sh*tshow!', talks of the cultural crises Americans face all over the country. He lives near Detroit with his family.