New York 'Vaccine Czar' Larry Schwartz called county officials to assess support for Andrew Cuomo: Report
The Andrew Cuomo administration of New York has come to face a fresh controversy, as if the nursing home deaths related to Covid-19 and the sexual harassment allegations were not enough. As more women continue to come out to accuse the New York governor of sexual harassment, one of Cuomo’s longtime aides -- Larry Schwartz -- has been criticized for calling up county executives to question their loyalty to the Democrat. Calls for Cuomo's resignation have gone stronger with voices emerging from within the Democratic Party as well. The governor though has remained defiant.
The Washington Post published a report in which it cited many official sources to say Schwartz -- a “vaccine czar” -- called the officials over the past couple of weeks to assess their loyalty to Cuomo amid investigation into the charges of sexual misconduct. It even said that one Democratic county executive was so rattled by Schwartz’s outreach that the individual filed a “notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general’s office”. Since Schwartz is the head of the Empire State’s vaccine rollout, the executive was worried that the county could suffer if Schwartz was not impressed with the response to the questions over supporting the embattled governor. “The executive said the conversation with Schwartz came in proximity to a separate conversation with another Cuomo administration official about vaccine distribution,” the Post report said.
RELATED ARTICLES
Schwartz act 'over the ethical line'
The Post quoted the executive as saying on the condition of anonymity that Schwartz’s move was “inappropriate”. The individual also said that it was something “clearly over the ethical line”. When the Post made a query with Schwartz, he said he did it as an old friend of Cuomo and did not bring up the issue of vaccines in the talks.
“I did nothing wrong,” Schwartz told the Post, adding: “I have always conducted myself in a manner commensurate to a high ethical standard.”
Schwartz has been one of Cuomo’s longtime advisers. He served as a secretary to the long-serving governor between 2011 and 2015 and continued to advise him on and off thereafter. Last spring, the man returned as a key person of the Cuomo administration on the Covid-19 pandemic that has hit the state hard and managed much of its response to the crisis.
The Post claimed that in several statements that he emailed to it on Saturday, March 13, Schwartz said the calls he made to the officials were not connected to the role he plays in the vaccine rollout program. “I did have conversations with a number of County Executives from across the State to ascertain if they were maintaining their public position that there is an ongoing investigation by the State Attorney General and that we should wait for the findings of that investigation before drawing any conclusions,” he wrote.
Calls were cordial, respectful, says Schwartz
Describing the calls as “cordial, respectful and friendly”, Schwartz claimed nobody said that they were not comfortable with the calls or they did not want to talk to him.
Though sources told National Public Radio that no law was broken by Schwartz’s calls, it could not be denied that the county officials were rightly afraid when they got “a call like that from the individual who controls their access to the vaccine”.
Marc Molinaro, president of the New York State County Executives Association, told NPR that three to four executives contracted him or his staff after receiving Schwartz’s calls as they were alarmed and expressed their concern. “That these calls would be made at all was troubling — that they were made by the individual responsible for really, with a great deal of discretion [over] distribution of vaccines, was extremely disturbing to them," he said.
“That these calls would be made at all was troubling — that they were made by the individual responsible for really, with a great deal of discretion [over] distribution of vaccines, was extremely disturbing to them,” Molinaro said. Several informed sources also told NPR that the calls crossed the line and put pressure on the county officials having the responsibility to take care of public health and distribute the vaccines quickly by avoiding the political equations. One of the officials even said such threatening pressure from Albany is not new. Even one of New York's Democratic lawmakers made a similar allegation recently in connection to the nursing home deaths scandal.
Investigative reporter Amy Brittain, one of the authors of the WaPo report, told CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez: “Asking things like, you know, are you willing to say that, that we should wait to see the results of the Attorney General investigation.”
“Did they say they felt threatened?” Sanchez asked.
“They did not feel it was an explicit threat, but … they were wondering, you know, what if I give the wrong answer? Is the vaccine supply for my county going to be affected, given the immense amount of power that this man has over a very precious commodity in New York?” she said in response.
Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, also told the Post that political outreach by the person leading the state’s vaccine response could make the officials apprehensive that vaccine decisions could be influenced by favoritism.
“People do not see calls coming from the governor’s mansion as somebody wearing one hat and then putting on another hat. If you are in control of a vital supply of a lifesaving resource like vaccines, you are carrying an enormous amount of implicit clout when you ask for political allegiance. And you shouldn’t be doing that, anyway. The public health goal to maximize the best use of vaccines has nothing to do with any public declaration of political fealty. And it shouldn’t even be implied or hinted at," he said.
New York State has administered 6.3 million doeses till Sunday, March 14, only fourth after California (11.88M), Texas (8.42M) and Florida (7.11M), Out World in Data statistics showed.