President Trump’s Department of Justice is setting its sights on a top candidate for New York City mayor, Andrew Cuomo, alleging that while governor he lied to Congress about his administration’s response to the Covid pandemic.

The investigation comes amid Mr. Cuomo’s attempt at a political comeback after resigning as governor in 2021 due to sexual harassment allegations. Some Republican members of Congress feel the former state leader lied during testimony and downplayed the number of nursing home deaths while referring their concerns to the DOJ, according to a report from CNN.

A spokesman for the former governor complains the Democrat was not informed of the new probe and questioned the timing of its announcement.

“We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now? The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple — something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against,” the spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, said in a statement to the cable news outlet. 

“Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political.”

In April, the House Oversight Committee chairman, James Comer, referred Mr. Cuomo to the DOJ for potential prosecution after a similar referral last year to the Biden administration never materialized into an investigation.

In 2021, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who is also under investigation by the Trump administration, launched a probe that uncovered that the state’s Department of Health had undercounted Covid deaths of nursing home residents by nearly 50 percent. A subsequent audit by the state comptroller determined that Mr. Cuomo’s health department failed to report more than 4,000 deaths between April 2020 and February 2021.  

The former governor has often refuted the allegations against him, with his legal team requesting the DOJ launch an investigation into the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic over abuse of power last October.