Michigan’s Attorney General Nessel Refuses To Probe Nursing Homes Deaths

So much for Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel’s belief in transparency.  It was not long ago that her office sent out a statement that read:

Attorney General Dana Nessel Embraces Gov. Whitmer's Transparency Agenda

February 1, 2019

LANSING – Michigan Attorney Dana Nessel praised the commitment to and support for transparency in state government announced today by Governor Gretchen Whitmer at the Michigan Press Association’s annual meeting, saying:

“Our residents should be able to count on their state government to be open, accessible, accountable and transparent.  The people’s business should never be conducted behind closed doors and we should do everything in our power to respond quickly, efficiently and thoroughly to every Freedom of Information request we get.  I strongly support the Governor’s directive and will immediately designate a transparency liaison for the Department of Attorney General to ensure we are doing everything we can to be efficient and transparent in our work on behalf of the people of Michigan.”

Just a little over a year later and apparently Nessel does not believe that Michigan’s government should be “open, accessible, accountable and transparent”.

The Detroit News is reporting on Nessel’s dismissing a request by congressional Republicans to investigate the Whitmer administration’s policies on coronavirus in nursing homes.  Interesting that only the Republicans asked for the investigations of so many deaths in Michigan nursing homes and the Democrats did not join them.  Hmmm tell me again whose lives matter?  More than a third of all COVID-19 deaths in Michigan came from nursing homes.  Those same nursing homes that Whitmer forced by executive order to take COVID-19 positive patients and send many of those Michigan nursing home residents to their death.

Nessel’s concern was not for transparency or the elderly in Michigan it was House Republican Whip Steve Scalise sending letters only to Democratic state executives in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania.  Nessel wrote that she was:

deeply troubled...does not extend to all of the nation's elderly...Genuine concern about the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities, like our elderly population, should compel you to review all states’ policies to determine if and how they impacted medical outcomes within those communities, not just those that are led by Democratic governors

Nessel then had the gall to say:

I have not — and will not — launch a criminal investigation simply because of someone’s political affiliation

Does anyone believe that she has not in the past and would not in the future investigate the Michigan Republican party at the drop of a hat?

Congressman Scalise responded to Nessel’s accusations in a statement which read: 

the idea that Nessel got a letter because Whitmer is a Democrat is "absurd and ignores reality."

He went on to say:

She got one because her governor was one of only five in the country that forced nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients and then refused to answer questions about that deadly order...The 45 states that did not receive letters are led by both Democrats and Republicans because they didn’t have disastrous orders like these.

Sounds like a legitimate request and reply by Congressman Scalise.  If a Republican Governor would have signed and issued an executive order demanding by the force of law that nursing homes must take COVID-19 positive patients I would expect them to have received the same letter.

Michigan citizens deserve to know why Governor Whitmer did what she did which lead to the death of so many nursing home residents.  Perhaps State Representative Hall's Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic Response bipartisan committee can get to the bottom of this tragedy.