Today, Jack Ciattarelli issued the following statement:

In a life and death crisis, we want – WE NEED – so badly to believe that our political leadership is acting in good faith in every way imaginable. Revelations disclosed in a nj.com investigative report suggest otherwise within the Murphy administration.

How could Governor Murphy’s Chief of Staff and General Counsel not care one bit about awarding a non-competitive bid contract that pays hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a well-connected consultant that was a Murphy campaign contributor? A consultant, mind you, that is to review the crisis in New Jersey nursing homes, where thousands died and all residents were needlessly and recklessly endangered by the neglect and poor policy decisions of the Murphy Administration. If members of the Murphy Administration cannot act in good faith, perhaps they should find another line of work. Immediately.

As for the Governor, if he had prioritized nursing homes as he did hospitals; if he had secured PPE for nursing homes; if he had gotten nursing homes test kits earlier on in the pandemic; if he hadn’t forced nursing homes to readmit COVID-19 positive patients; and if his regulators had done their job inspecting nursing homes, then people would not have died, including those in state-operated nursing homes where the number of deaths were greatest. We also would not have to be spending taxpayer dollars on any conflicted consultant to whitewash New Jersey’s nursing home tragedy and failure of leadership.

The Governor has no shame.