Republicans grill Cuomo on Linda Sun at congressional COVID hearing

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was in the hot seat on Tuesday as he was grilled by members of Congress over his handling of the COVID pandemic in New York – but he wasn’t the only one in the spotlight. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Linda Sun, a former aide to both Cuomo and Hochul who was recently accused of working as a Chinese foreign agent, got some attention during the House hearing.

Cuomo once again found himself defending his decisions in the early days of the COVID pandemic, particularly the now-infamous March 25, 2020 order that required nursing homes to accept COVID-positive residents. The order and its impact on the number of deaths in nursing homes due to COVID has been highly criticized and the subject of several investigations, including that of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Prior to the Tuesday hearing, the subcommittee released a nearly 50-page report that concluded that Cuomo’s administration put its finger on the scales to obscure the number of nursing home deaths New York had in the early days of the pandemic. 

Between Cuomo’s rigorous and aggressive defense of his COVID policies – trying to shift attention to the mistakes of then-President Donald Trump and downplaying the investigation as partisan political theater – at least two Republican members of Congress made sure to namecheck Sun. The first mention came from New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis. While questioning Cuomo on who approved the unsigned nursing home order, she facetiously suggested that perhaps Sun approved it. “Was it your chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa – or maybe it was that communist spy,” Malliotakis said. “Maybe it was that communist Chinese spy who worked in your administration.” Sun, who has been accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, has pleaded not guilty and has not yet been tried on the charges. 

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – a noted critic of China and alleged spying by the country – took it a step further during her questioning of Cuomo. Where other subcommittee members focused largely on Cuomo’s COVID decision-making and its impact on the death toll, Greene used part of her five minutes making connections between the former governor and China during the pandemic. “Mr. Cuomo, you were thanking China, the (People’s Republic of China) while you had a woman named Linda Sun working for you, who has now been identified as a Chinese spy,” Greene said, referencing an April 4, 2020 tweet in which Cuomo thanked the Chinese consul general in New York for helping arrange a donation of ventilators. “Are you either the dumbest tool of the Chinese government, or did you know for a fact that you were being used by the Chinese spy that was working for you?” she asked Cuomo. 

Cuomo responded by calling Sun “a junior member of his team” and said that he “wouldn’t recognize her if she were in this room today.” The former governor called it a “serious issue” that the state and federal government should work together on. Greene concluded her time questioning Cuomo by entering the Sun indictment for the hearing’s record.

Hochul didn’t have anything to say about the mentions of Sun when asked by City & State. “I wasn’t paying attention,” she said of the hearing on Tuesday. “I’ve got a job to do.” According to the indictment, Sun had more interaction with Hochul than with Cuomo. And after bringing Sun on as a deputy chief for her executive chamber, Hochul had a number of meetings that included Sun.

Hochul was also mentioned at the start of the hearing by the select subcommittee Chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup. He announced a subpoena to the governor’s office for any documents related to Cuomo and his nursing home directive. Wenstrup charged that Hochul’s administration is “improperly withholding” relevant documents. “We hope that Gov. Hochul lives up to her promise of transparency and proceeds without further delay,” he said. 

The governor’s office responded swiftly. "Governor Hochul is committed to transparency and immediately released additional COVID-19 data the day she took office,” said spokesperson Avi Small, noting that the governor’s office had already handed over nearly over 370,000 documents. “While today's action is surprising, given the Subcommittee's previous comments expressing appreciation for the State’s prompt and extensive cooperation, we fully intend to comply with the law in this matter.”