New York Attorney General Letitia James released thousands of pages of transcripts yesterday from the independent investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In addition to significant impropriety described by 10 women, one sworn testimonial details the politically motivated creation of “red zones” by the Governor last year. The speaker, identified in the heavily redacted transcript only as “DOH Official #2,” was the New York Department of Health Medical Director of Epidemiology, a position she held since 2014.

In her own words:

Page 114
I think that they were looking for someone to be an expert witness on that case and some people, as I understood it, were refusing to go do these legal attestations or affidavits.

I think part of the challenge was the system of not having other experts willing to do it, but even if I had been available, I would not have done it. I didn’t know how they determined XXXX and no one that I worked closely with knew how they determined XXXX, what the metrics for — at that time how they determined it.

Q. When you say how they determined XXXX, who is they?
A. The Chamber.

Page 118
Q. Did you have an understanding what or who they feared retribution from?
A. The Chamber.

Page 130
Q. Are you aware of any involvement by the Executive Chamber after January, 2020 in setting internal policies at DOH?
A. Yes.
Q. What are you aware of other than what we have already talked about?
A. All the policies. I don’t know how to be more specific.

Page 134
Q. Are you aware of any instructions from members of the Executive Chamber after 20 January, 2020 that went against the professional judgement of DOH employees?
A. The zones were very complicated. There were metrics that our staff would work on, but they would only be announced that people met the metrics if that came from the Chamber. Some areas met the metrics and would be called a zone and others met the metrics and would not be called a zone. Our staff who worked for hours and hours on these metrics and then nothing would be announced and it was very unclear as to why they would get very frustrated. And for me that was part of my not wanting to be involved in a lawsuit about the metrics without having clarity on how they were established. I didn’t feel professionally that I could do that…

What emerges is a disturbing picture of an executive branch creating policies of arbitrarily shutting down certain communities and not others. This was one of the factors alleged in the lawsuit of Agudath Israel v. Cuomo, as explained here.

As these new details emerge, the Agudah is once again thankful to the Almighty for allowing the truth to come to light, and for the Agudah to have ultimately prevailed in this landmark Supreme Court case. These new revelations reinforce the importance of staving off capricious government actions which, as detailed in the transcript, were rooted in executive whim and not scientific rigor.