A new memoir by Melissa DeRosa, the former top aide to Democratic New York governor Andrew Cuomo, paints a rosy picture of the ex-governor’s tenure — in particular, rewriting his record on nursing homes during the pandemic. She portrays Cuomo as a martyr, brought down from power not by his own failures but rather by an incredibly broad conspiracy of actors.

DeRosa has stated that her memoir, What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics & Crisis, is “not a burn book.” If it were an attempt at revenge, it would be ineffective. As reputation laundering, though, it is worth more consideration: the memoir attempts to rehabilitate Cuomo and insulate him from accountability. In the case of the preventable nursing home deaths, our investigative reporting — years before DeRosa’s book was drafted — undermines her narrative.

DeRosa spends a great deal of the book focused on what she calls the “politicization of COVID” in nursing homes. In particular, she expends significant ink on an instance in which a press-conference flub made it appear as though she was admitting that her administration was underreporting the number of people who died in nursing homes during the pandemic.