Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congressional panel he didn’t remember personally working on a controversial, state-issued report that tallied pandemic-related deaths in nursing homes.

Now, a Republican-led House Committee is accusing him of lying to Congress, telling the Justice Department that it should consider prosecuting him for not telling the truth about his role in crafting a state COVID report.

“When they asked the governor about this report, they said, ‘Did you have any role in editing it?’ And I think they expected him to say ‘yes’ because it was pretty well documented that he had been involved,” Bill Hammond, a senior researcher at the Empire Center for Public Policy, said.

“But he denied any involvement,” he added.

In a 107-page criminal referral, the committee says the DOJ should charge Cuomo.

Releasing new evidence allegedly showing he helped draft the July 6, a 2020 report later found to have severely under counted nursing home deaths.

“They have, what I think is fair to say, smoking gun evidence that he was intimately involved,” Hammond said.

New emails from Cuomo’s former aide Farrah Kennedy show the ex-politician approved “edits” and documents show Cuomo himself made handwritten suggestions on the draft report, according to the panel.

When asked previously about his involvement, Cuomo claimed he did not recall.It’s part of a months-long probe into Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic.

But experts argue the referral could be dead on arrival.

“The Department of Justice rarely but sometimes does take up and pursue criminal referrals but the difficulty is since any member of Congress can make a criminal referral there are no standards in terms of evidence,” Ron Kuby, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney said.

Former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff, a partner at the law firm Cozen O’Connor, said it’s hard to prove false statements in court.

"You have to really show that there was this intentional, misleading or omissive comment made by somebody. Memories are imperfect, so sometimes someone just doesn’t recall a particular thing,” she said.

That’s the defense Cuomo is adopting.

“This is a joke — the Governor said he didn’t recall because he didn’t recall. The committee lied in their referral just as they have been lying to the public and the press,” spokesman Rich Azzopardi in a statement said.

Cuomo also filed his own criminal referral through his attorney, alleging the House committee is playing politics.

Regardless, Krissoff says of the DOJ, “They’re always gonna take these referrals seriously. I think they have to if they’re coming from elected officials or judges.”

There’s also the possibility that Donald Trump returns to the White House — and a DOJ under his administration that chooses to go after Cuomo.

“Donald Trump has very publicly stated that he intends to use the Justice Department to punish and go after his political enemies of which Andrew Cuomo is one, so the report could serve as some sort of basis for a potential grand jury indictment under the Trump administration,” Kuby said.

Meanwhile, Cuomo is mulling jumping into the 2025 mayoral race and critics say this referral could serve as a reminder for New Yorkers about his controversial past.