Cuomo investigation expanded to include COVID vaccine politicization: report - Fox News

Investigators spoke to three Democratic county executives who said they were caught off guard when they received calls from Larry Schwartz, a volunteer adviser overseeing vaccine distribution across New York, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

In phone calls centering on vaccine allocation, Schwartz reportedly asked if they would be calling for the governor’s resignation. .

The governor at the time was also making personal phone calls to state lawmakers to drum up support for remaining in office. .

Linking life-saving vaccine access to political support for the governor is a criminal abuse of power.".

Schwartz, an executive at an airport concessions company, resigned from his post as vaccine czar last week after the state legislature repealed an ethics order by the governor for unpaid state advisers

The same order also exempted unpaid "adviser" volunteers from other ethics rules, including some transparency guidelines and rules on open meetings, public records keeping and financial disclosures, according to the report

On Thursday, Liu claimed that the ethics exemptions allowed by Cuomo’s now-repealed executive order made a mockery of the notion that high-level state volunteers were working in the public’s interest