Looks like Andrew Cuomo is back in the hot seat, this time facing a grilling from a GOP-led House panel on his pandemic response. The former New York governor, known for his daily COVID-19 briefings and theatrics, is set to testify publicly very soon, where he’ll likely face tough questions about his handling of nursing home policies during the pandemic. Cuomo, who has been out of office since 2021, is expected to repeat his usual defenses—but who knows? Maybe this time, he’ll manage to come up with something new.

Cuomo’s upcoming appearance comes after his closed-door testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in June. That session may not have made waves, but now, in a public setting, Republicans are keen to scrutinize his controversial COVID-era decisions more openly. After all, Cuomo’s pandemic response wasn’t exactly a model of success. Remember when his policies sent COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes, only to cause a tragic spike in fatalities? Yeah, that one’s going to come up again.

Let’s not forget, Cuomo was once hailed by the media as a pandemic hero, despite his policies that have since been called into question. He claimed he was just following federal guidelines, but that defense hasn’t sat well with everyone, especially the families who lost loved ones in those nursing homes. Now, Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, is doing his best damage control, saying Cuomo is eager to address why more people died from COVID in the United States than anywhere else. Sure, that’s the question Cuomo wants to focus on, not the disastrous consequences of his own decisions.

The nursing home scandal revolves around a directive from March 25, 2020, issued by New York State’s Health Department, which stated that nursing homes couldn’t refuse patients based on a COVID-19 diagnosis and couldn’t require a test before admitting them. This policy, supposedly in line with federal guidelines, resulted in countless infections and deaths among the most vulnerable—nursing home residents. Cuomo’s team still insists they were just following orders, but a 48-page memo released by the House panel ahead of Tuesday’s hearing argues otherwise.

According to the memo, Cuomo was directly involved in crafting the March 25 directive, and it claims that the policy wasn’t consistent with federal guidance on handling hospital-to-nursing home transfers during the pandemic. Instead, the memo says, the policy led to predictable but disastrous consequences. And, to top it off, it accuses Cuomo’s administration of manipulating data to cover up the real number of nursing home deaths.

Now, Cuomo’s side has come out swinging. Azzopardi blasted the memo, calling it a product of a “MAGA Congressional Committee” with no evidence of causality between the directive and the deaths. He insists that the claims are unsupported and contradicted by testimony from a former health department official. Nice try, but let’s not ignore the findings of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who reported that the state had undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths by about 50%. That’s not exactly a rounding error, folks.

But Cuomo’s woes don’t end there. The committee has also highlighted how top aides to Cuomo allegedly manipulated health department reports to downplay the number of deaths. Meanwhile, the Justice Department, Manhattan District Attorney, New York Attorney General, and State Assembly have all taken a look at Cuomo’s pandemic performance, but none brought charges against him. This latest hearing could change that—or at least keep the spotlight on his missteps a bit longer.

Adding another layer to the drama, the current New York Governor Kathy Hochul, another Democrat, has not been particularly forthcoming with the House panel’s document requests. In fact, the committee is considering issuing a subpoena to get the records they need. Looks like the Cuomo fallout isn’t just a thing of the past.

So, what can we expect from Cuomo’s testimony? More of the same deflection and finger-pointing, perhaps. But maybe, just maybe, the former governor will finally have to confront the devastating impact of his decisions. After all, New Yorkers deserve answers about what really happened in their nursing homes during those dark days of the pandemic. One thing’s for sure: the media’s former darling is going to have a lot of explaining to do, and this time, he won’t be able to hide behind his carefully crafted press conferences. The truth, as they say, has a funny way of coming out eventually.