Donald Trump fires intelligence watchdog who sparked impeachment process
Donald Trump has fired the inspector general for the intelligence community who handled the whistleblower complaint that led to his impeachment, prompting fierce criticism from Democrats.
The US president chose a Friday night, with America consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, to tell the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees of his decision to dismiss Michael Atkinson.
In a letter, Trump claimed it was “vital” that he had confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general, and “that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general”.
The president would nominate an individual who has his full confidence at a later date, he added.
There was swift condemnation from Democrats. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, said: “President Trump fires people for telling the truth.
“Michael Atkinson is a man of integrity who has served our nation for almost two decades. Being fired for having the courage to speak truth to power makes him a patriot.”
Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee and a prominent figure in the impeachment hearings, described the move as “yet another blatant attempt by the president to gut the independence of the intelligence community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing”.
He added: “At a time when our country is dealing with a national emergency and needs people in the intelligence community to speak truth to power, the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington, tweeted: “Leave it to Trump to use a global pandemic as cover for his retaliation against those who helped bring to light his wrongdoing. Disgusting.”
Atkinson was the first official to alert Congress last year to an anonymous whistleblower complaint that described a phone call in which Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to announce an investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden.
In letters to Congress in August and September, Atkinson said he believed the complaint was urgent and credible. But Joseph Maguire, who was acting director of National Intelligence at the time, decided it was not urgent and tried to withhold the complaint from Congress.
Under huge political pressure, the White House eventually released the complaint, triggering an investigation by the Democratic-controlled House, which charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and voted to impeach a president for only the third time in history.
Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate in February in what critics described as a show trial with no documents or witnesses allowed. Nevertheless, the president claimed he had been vindicated following a “witch hunt” and purged two officials who testified.
Trump chose Atkinson, who had served in the justice department for 15 years, for inspector general in late 2017 and he was confirmed in May 2018. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Atkinson promised whistleblower protection that “validates moral courage without compromising national security and without retaliation”.
In November last year, the New York Times reported that Trump had discussed with aides the possibility of firing Atkinson because he could not understand why the inspector general failed to dismiss the complaint. In a tweet, he suggested that Atkinson should be forced to testify at the impeachment hearings.
The removal of Atkinson fits a long pattern of retribution against the intelligence community. In May 2017 he fired James Comey, the director of the FBI, who was leading an investigation into his contacts with Russia during the presidential election.
More recently Maguire was also ousted and replaced by Richard Grenell, who had been US ambassador to Germany and is a strong Trump backer. The president has nominated Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe to the permanent position but he must await Senate confirmation.
Last month more than a hundred intelligence and national security professionals signed a joint letter warning that Trump “has created an existential danger to the United States” and endorsing Biden for president.
Trump administration edits national stockpile website a day after it contradicted Jared Kushner
Washington (CNN)The website of the Strategic National Stockpile was edited on Friday to soften language about how the stockpile is supposed to be used by states -- a day after media outlets reported that the original version contradicted a claim by senior White House official Jared Kushner.
Kushner, President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, said at Thursday's coronavirus briefing that states themselves have medical equipment stockpiled -- and argued that "the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile; it's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use."
Journalists and others quickly pointed out that the federal stockpile's own website made clear Kushner was wrong.
As of early Friday morning, the stockpile's home page had read: "Strategic National Stockpile is the nation's largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously."
These sentences were gone as of Friday afternoon. In their place were new sentences that emphasized that the stockpile is meant as a temporary backup for states' own supplies.
The revised page reads: "The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available."
he Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which manages the stockpile, would not comment on the record. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a spokesperson said that the edit had been in the works before Kushner's remarks.
"This is language we have been using in responding to inquiries for weeks now. ASPR first began working to update the website text a week ago to more clearly explain to state and local agencies and members of the public the role of the SNS," the spokesperson said.
Jeremy Konyndyk, who served under former President Barack Obama as director of the US Agency for International Development's Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, told CNN before the edit that the original home page "could not be a more literal refutation of Jared's claim." He called the edit "absolutely Orwellian."
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado sent a letter to the inspector general of Health and Human Services on Thursday requesting an investigation into "mismanagement being reported" about the stockpile's supply of ventilators. Gardner told Politico that the letter was not a response to Kushner's comment, but he also questioned the comment.
"I don't know what Kushner was talking about, what he meant," Gardner said to Politico, noting that "the stockpile is for the country," including states.
States have established procedures for requesting material from the stockpile, which is meant to be accessible to states in emergencies.
In August, Greg Burel, then the director of the stockpile, wrote on another government web page: "Emergencies can overwhelm state and local medical resources even with the best preparation. To help in those situations, the SNS has evolved to become the nation's largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency."
And a government web page on the stockpile's history notes that, upon its founding in 1999 under its original name, the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, "The mission was to assemble large quantities of essential medical supplies that could be delivered to states and communities during an emergency within 12 hours of the federal decision to use the stockpile."
Konyndyk said in an email that Kushner's Thursday remark "shows a total misunderstanding of the purpose of the SNS, but more broadly shows a misunderstanding of how federal disaster response operates."
"Most federal disaster support operates on the model that states/locals lead in assessing need, defining requirements, and executing response operations. The federal level supports them in that, providing resources, coordination, expertise, logistics, etc. as required. That's FEMA's basic operating model and it's how the SNS is supposed to operate as well."
The stockpile has run low this week. The New York Times also reported this week that thousands of ventilators stockpiled by the federal government were not functional because the Trump administration had allowed a maintenance contract to lapse. Trump has argued that he is doing an "unbelievable job" helping states. But he has also pushed back against state leaders' urgent calls for supplies from the federal government, arguing that they should have themselves done a better job preparing.
"By the way, the states should have been building their stockpile. We have almost 10,000 (ventilators) in our stockpile. And we've been building it, and we've been supplying it. But the states should be building. We're a backup. We're not an ordering clerk. We're a backup," Trump said Thursday.
3M pushes back after Trump orders company to stop exporting N95 masks
WASHINGTON — Manufacturing giant 3M pushed backed against President Trump in a statement on Friday that suggested it would not comply with a White House order to stop exporting masks to Canada and Latin America.
The Trump administration on Thursday invoked the Defense Production Act, compelling 3M to prioritize orders for desperately needed N95 respiratory masks for the US government’s national stockpile.
The Minnesota-based company, one of the largest manufacturers of the masks, said it was looking forward to implementing the order and had already been going “above and beyond” in recent weeks to churn them out as quickly as possible amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But 3M criticized a previously unreported request from the White House that it also stop sending any N95 masks to Latin America and Canada, citing “significant humanitarian implications” given the great need for them in the US and complaints from governors around the country, including New York’s Andrew Cuomo, that they wind up in bidding wars for supplies against each other and other countries.
“The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets,” the Friday morning statement read.
“There are, however, significant humanitarian implications of ceasing respirator supplies to healthcare workers in Canada and Latin America, where we are a critical supplier of respirators,” it continued.
The manufacturing company said it feared other countries would retaliate if it stopped exporting masks made in the US, “as some have already done.”
“If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease. That is the opposite of what we and the Administration, on behalf of the American people, both seek.”
The bombshell sparked a diplomatic scramble, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford telling US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the new order would potentially jeopardize the health of Canada’s frontline workers, he said in a tweet.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the order a “mistake.”
“It would be a mistake for both of our countries to limit our access to goods and personnel,” Trudeau said Friday morning, saying Canada would “continue to keep trade open with the United States.”
The president and his top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, both lashed into the Minnesota-based company on Thursday night, criticizing 3M for continuing to send respirators overseas when the US is facing a critical domestic shortage.
Trump tweeted that his administration “hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their masks,” and threatened the company “will have a big price to pay.”
At a White House briefing Thursday evening, Navarro said he’d experienced issues making sure 3M products manufactured around the world were “coming back here to the right places.”
In its statement, 3M said it would ramp up overseas production and was exporting 10 million N95 respirators manufactured by its factory in China.
Several other companies including General Electric, Phillips and General Motors have also been recently compelled to produce ventilators in separate Defense Production Act cases.
Trump Elevates Unqualified Judge as a Reward for Defending Kavanaugh
In March, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was scrambling to reach a deal with the White House on a coronavirus relief package, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was missing in action. He was not working on his own proposal or whipping votes for the Trump administration’s. Rather, McConnell was in Louisville, Kentucky, with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to attend the swearing-in ceremony for Justin Walker, a close ally of both men, to a federal district court. The American Bar Association gave Walker a rare “Not Qualified” rating, yet the majority leader persuaded the Senate to confirm the nominee on a party-line vote in October. Walker took his seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky that same month, but delayed his formal swearing-in ceremony until March. The event served as a victory lap for McConnell as well as a break from his duties addressing the burgeoning pandemic.
Walker, 37, has done nothing of note during his five months on the district court. Nonetheless, on Friday, Donald Trump nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second-most-powerful court in the country. With this unusually fast promotion, Trump is elevating another partisan hack who will faithfully implement the Republican Party platform from the bench for decades to come.
It’s no surprise that the ABA rated Walker “Not Qualified,” since his chief qualifications seem to be his political work, Washington connections, and longtime membership in the Federalist Society. Walker graduated from Harvard Law School in 2009, clerked for Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit, then for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. The ABA found it “challenging to determine how much of his ten years since graduation from law school has been spent in the practice of law,” and he has never served as lead or co-counsel on any case, civil or criminal.
Why, then, did Walker get tapped for the bench in the first place? After Kennedy announced his retirement, Walker sprang into action to lobby on Kavanaugh’s behalf. Walker made 162 media appearances between June 27, 2018, and Oct. 6, 2018, to defend his former boss, many on Fox News. He consistently praised Kavanaugh in political terms. For instance, he declared that Kavanaugh “is a fighter for conservative legal principles who will not go wobbly,” a dig at Chief Justice John Roberts’ occasional deviations from the GOP party line. He touted Kavanaugh’s record “on conservative issues like Second Amendment, executive power, and EPA regulations.” He predicted that Kavanaugh’s confirmation would usher in “an end to affirmative action, an end to successful litigation about religious displays and prayers, an end to bans on semi-automatic rifles, and an end to almost all judicial [decisions allowing abortion].” And, noting that Trump is “a big fan of generals and warriors,” Walker said, “I think Judge Kavanaugh fits that bill, you know, if you imagine Judge Kavanaugh storming a beach, his military uniform’s torn and tattered from fighting for conservative legal principles.”
After Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1982, Walker grew even more overtly partisan. He condemned Senate Democrats’ desire for an FBI investigation as a “farce” and lobbed personal attacks at Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He mocked Sen. Richard Blumenthal for “claim[ing] to be a Vietnam War veteran, falsely,” a favored Trump line, and suggested that the FBI should investigate Sen. Dianne Feinstein instead. He announced that Ford must be “mistaken” about her account of the experience. And when Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt asked him what Democrats’ next “line of attack” might be, he responded: “Oh my goodness. You know, Ainsley, there are limits to my imagination.”
Shortly before this publicity blitz, Walker told McConnell he was interested in a federal judgeship. Days after Kavanaugh’s confirmation, he brought up this possibility with Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee. Eight months later, Trump nominated him to a Kentucky district court. And now, just weeks after Walker’s swearing-in ceremony for that position, Trump and McConnell seek to elevate him to the D.C. Circuit, which hears frequent challenges to federal laws and regulations. According to the Washington Post, both Kennedy and Kavanaugh recommended Walker for the vacancy. If confirmed, he will replace conservative George W. Bush appointee Thomas Griffith. McConnell has been privately asking Republican-appointed judges to retire soon so Trump can appoint their replacements; it is unclear if Griffith stepped down at his prodding.
There is little chance that Senate Republicans will reject Walker’s nomination given that they’ve already put him on a lower court and routinely confirm unqualified ideological extremists to the bench. Once on the D.C. Circuit, Walker will serve alongside fellow Trump judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas. (He will not alter the ideological balance of the court, which is fairly liberal.) Rao has already distinguished herself as an unapologetic partisan who tirelessly runs interference for the president who appointed her, and Katsas has joined her crusade to shield Trump from oversight. With colleagues like Rao and Katsas by his side, Walker will fit right in.
How Trump surprised his own team by ruling out Obamacare
Insurers were prepared to extend coverage, HHS officials were largely on board, but the White House refused to reopen enrollment.
As coronavirus ran rampant and record jobless numbers piled up, the nation’s health insurers last week readied for a major announcement: The Trump administration was reopening Obamacare to millions of newly uninsured Americans.
It was an announcement that never came.
The White House instead rejected the prospect of allowing new sign-ups across the 38 Affordable Care Act marketplaces it controls – a decision that shocked the health care industry, triggered widespread criticism and prompted a scramble within the administration to find a new way to care for the growing population left exposed to the pandemic.
It's also one that allowed Trump to sidestep an awkward reckoning with the Affordable Care Act that he’s long vowed to kill, and the health care program bearing the name of his Democratic predecessor. The president personally opposed reopening the Obamacare marketplaces when presented with the option, one person familiar with the decision said – prompting the creation of a new initiative that federal officials are now rushing to construct.
“You have a perfectly good answer in front of you, and instead you’re going to make another one up,” said one Republican close to the administration. “It’s purely ideological.”
On Friday, Trump touted his administration’s plan to cover uninsured patients’ coronavirus treatments by paying hospitals for their costs, on the condition that providers also not stick those people with separate charges.
“This should alleviate any concern uninsured Americans may have about seeking the coronavirus treatment,” Trump said during a press briefing. “So that, I think, answers the question pretty well and very much in favor of our great people.”
The rollout of the new hospital pay program capped a frenetic several days within the administration, prompted by a White House official’s confirmation Tuesday that there would be no reopening of the Obamacare markets.
That declaration surprised even some officials in the Health and Human Services Department, who believed the concept was still under consideration. And amid a crush of criticism from Democrats led by 2020 front runner Joe Biden, it worried officials who viewed the verdict as an unforced error in the middle of a historic pandemic.
“It’s a bad decision optics-wise,” one administration official said in the immediate aftermath. “It politicizes people’s access to health services during a serious national health emergency.”
Over the prior weeks, health officials charged with overseeing Obamacare had debated offering special access to those caught without insurance as the coronavirus spread, officials told POLITICO.
Several states with control over their own health exchanges had already flung their doors open in the last month, in an acknowledgment of the deepening crisis that’s already killed thousands and threatens to persist well into the summer.
“We are in a unique situation,” Michele Eberle, the executive director in charge of Maryland’s Obamacare market, said Wednesday, as the state led by GOP Gov. Larry Hogan announced it would enroll people through June 15. “The decision to extend the enrollment deadline was made to ensure as many people as possible get the coverage they need.”
Health insurers that would be on the hook for covering the new population, including the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, had also thrown their vocal support behind the idea.
"A Special Enrollment Period would offer much needed coverage to millions of Americans and mitigate the potential impact on providers and hospitals which will be forced to rely on emergency funding," the Association of Community Health Plans wrote in a March letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma.
The move made sense to many in both the industry and Trump’s own administration, because Americans who lose their health insurance as a result of losing their job are already eligible to sign up for Obamacare outside of the traditional month-long enrollment period. With the coronavirus pandemic straining hospitals and the administration’s projections growing increasingly dire, health officials began signaling to insurers that it was preparing to give the broader pool of uninsured Americans a fresh shot at getting coverage, three people with knowledge of the discussions said.
And by late March, administration officials sent word to insurers that the call would soon be official: They were reopening Obamacare, in an unprecedented move that recognized the depth of the public health emergency.
Major health insurance groups prepped press releases in anticipation of a formal announcement as soon as March 28, two people with knowledge of the arrangements said.
But that Saturday passed quietly, as inside the White House, senior aides to Trump balked at giving the proposal a final sign-off. Among the concerns: That the insurers calling loudly for reopening the markets would return weeks later seeking a bailout, as their new enrollees started to rack up medical expenses, a former senior administration official familiar with the decision said.
White House aides largely agreed it was far better to instead spend that money on hospitals, said two senior administration officials, even after officials at HHS and CMS had signaled plans to reopen the exchanges.
The aides also worried that Obamacare coverage would remain unaffordable for many Americans even if the administration did reopen the markets – introducing a host of new political risks, another former senior administration official added.
By Tuesday, HealthCare.gov's grand reopening was off, with a White House official telling POLITICO that the administration was exploring alternative options.
HHS spokespeople declined to address a series of questions about the decision-making process.
“We do not comment on internal deliberations," an HHS spokesperson said. "This has been publicly addressed during White House press briefings and we would point you to those comments.”
The White House declined comment.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday insisted that paying providers directly for coronavirus treatment represented a faster and more targeted solution.
The uninsured will be able to seek treatment immediately, without worrying about first purchasing insurance coverage, Azar said. And hospitals will be reimbursed swiftly for their expenses, on the additional condition that they not stick their patients with surprise bills.
“In many respects it’s better for those uninsured individuals,” Azar said. “What President Trump is doing here with this money is an unprecedented disease-specific support of care for individuals to make sure that people get treatment.”
Yet the announcement comes with fresh questions about how smoothly the administration can run the payment process in the middle of an all-consuming crisis, how much of the $100 billion fund already earmarked for hospitals it will consume and how expansive the coverage for the uninsured will be.
If Trump had chosen instead to reopen the HealthCare.gov website – as 11 largely blue states that control their own markets have already done – people without insurance could buy more comprehensive policies that not only would cover coronavirus but any follow-up treatment, mental-health care, and future check-ups.
Trump, however, has long opposed Obamacare, pledging on the campaign trail to eliminate it and making the law’s repeal and replacement a top priority of his presidency. That aspiration ended in failure in 2017, though the administration has successfully rolled back a central requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance.
The White House has since sought to limit Obamacare’s reach, while backing a lawsuit by GOP-led states to wipe out the law altogether – a position it’s continued to hold as coronavirus cases mount.
The decision not to reopen Obamacare enrollment prompted an immediate rebuke from Democrats and insurers.
"This callous decision will cost lives. Period," former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted on Wednesday.
The White House decision also caught the hospital industry off guard, frustrating executives who spent the past week awaiting guidance for how strained front-line facilities could access the new funding.
The 11 wildest lines from Donald Trump's utterly childish letter to Chuck Schumer
(CNN)-On Thursday afternoon -- moments before he urged people to take politics out of the coronavirus fight -- President Donald Trump sent an absolutely unbelievable letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The letter, which the White House released (and my producer Alli Gordon transcribed!) reads like a sort of Mad Libs you might fill out and leave in the locker of your 7th grade enemy. It makes abundantly clear that Trump is annoyed with Schumer's push for a more robust federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and angry at the New York Democrat's push for White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to be replaced as the coordinator of the Defense Production Act.
According to Schumer, Trump called him Thursday afternoon and said he had tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the letter from being sent.
I went through the letter -- it's about a page and a quarter -- and pulled out the lines you need to see. (You can read the whole thing here.) They're below.
1. "Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way."
2. "Vice President Pence is in charge of the Task Force. By almost all accounts, he has done a spectacular job."
This is classic Trump stuff here. Pence is receiving rave reviews "by almost all accounts." In fact, many people are saying the vice president is doing the best job of leading the coronavirus task force that anyone has ever done. Spectacular!
3. "The Defense Production Act (DPA) has been consistently used by my team and me for the purchase of billions of dollars' worth of equipment, medical supplies, ventilators, and other related items."
Trump signed the DPA more than a week ago but there were a number of questions as to whether he would actually use it -- because he kept saying it was a worst-case move and warned that it reeked of socialism. (Just watch this video, it will explain all.)
4. "We have given New York many things, including hospitals, medical centers, medical supplies, record numbers of ventilators, and more."
"I have neither the time, or the inclination, to explain myself to a man, who rises and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner, in which I provide it. I'd rather you just say 'thank you' and go on your way." -- Colonel Nathan Jessup
5. "As you are aware, the Federal Government is merely a back-up for state governments. Unfortunately, your state needed far more of a back-up than most others."
The fault, as always, lies with someone other than Trump. See, Schumer should be grateful anything he gets from Trump -- because New York did so poorly in preparation. See, it all makes sense. Right? Right?!?!
6. "If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the 'invisible enemy.'"
We're back to impeachment! Also, there is zero indication that the impeachment trial had any significant effect on the ability of Schumer or anyone else to be prepared (or not) for the coming coronavirus. As The Washington Post's Philip Bump details, the trial ended on February 5 and in the months of February and early March, Trump himself "visited Mar-a-Lago three times, his hotel in downtown Washington once and his hotel in Las Vegas for a three-day stay in late February."
7. "No wonder AOC and others are thinking about running against you in the primary. If they did, they would likely win."
There's very little evidence that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is planning a primary challenge to Schumer in 2022. In fact, the only person who is talking regularly about this is -- wait for it -- Donald Trump!
8. "You have been missing in action, except when it comes to the 'press.'"
Why, why, WHY is the word press in quotes in the letter? My kingdom for an answer to this eternal question. (Related note: I don't have a kingdom. More of a fiefdom.)
9. "While you have stated that you don't like Andrew Cuomo, you ought to start working alongside him for the good of all New Yorkers."
I dug around the internet for some evidence that Schumer said he didn't like the New York governor, but couldn't find it. (Maybe Trump knows something I don't.) The closest I came was the fact that Cuomo was sharply critical of the $2 trillion economic stimulus bill that Schumer negotiated with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin late last month.
10. "I've known you for many years, but I never knew how bad a Senator you are for the state of New York, until I became President."
Look, we've known each other for a long time now. But it's only of late I have realized how terrible you are at, well, life. Worth noting: Schumer won reelection with 71% of the vote in 2016.
11. "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call."
You're the absolute worst! Call anytime! This feels like a good place to end.
Georgia senator bought stock in personal protective equipment maker amid coronavirus crisis: report
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) purchased stock in a company that produces personal protective equipment as the coronavirus crisis heated up, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.
Perdue reported 10 different stock purchases in the company DuPont de Nemours between Jan. 24 and March 2. The investments amounted to $185,000, according to the newspaper. Jan. 24 was the date of a Senate members-only coronavirus briefing but an official for Perdue said the senator did not attend.
The senator’s financial portfolio activity jumped almost threefold last month when compared to monthly reports between January 2018 through February 2020, which recorded an average of 38 transactions.
His financial disclosure form showed 112 transactions, including 76 purchases amounting to $1.8 million and 34 sales amounting to $825,000, the Journal-Constitution reported.
A Perdue spokeswoman said he has not been involved in his personal finances since taking office.
“Since coming to the U.S. Senate in 2015, Sen. Perdue has always had an outside adviser managing his personal finances, and he is not involved in day-to-day decisions,” his spokeswoman said in a statement. “For the past five years, the senator has fully complied with federal law and all Senate ethics requirements.”
Perdue, who is up for reelection this year, invested more than he sold during the month, including $50,000 in the streaming company Netflix. But he also invested in Delta and Disney in February, which have taken financial hits amid the crisis.
The senator also sold stocks from companies experiencing great profits during the crisis like Kroger and Clorox.
His spokeswoman added that the financial report shows “nothing has changed” in how it's being managed, and the senator is focusing on helping Georgians “make it through these challenging times.”
Other senators have fallen under public scrutiny after reports surfaced that they sold stocks right before the coronavirus crisis took shape in the U.S. and the markets began to fall, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) who has faced calls to resign. These reports have led some to suggest members of Congress be banned from purchasing stock form individual companies.
Perdue commented on his financial portfolio in a Nextar interview on March 20.
“I can’t address anybody else’s situation, but I can just tell you over the last five years I’ve had outside professionals manage my personal affairs,” he said. “I don’t deal with it on a day-to-day basis.”
“I think if you look through that period of time, you’ll see purchases and sales, just like you would last year at that time or any other time,” he said.
The result is lives lost that could have been saved.
More than anything his behavior is repulsive. How anyone can support him is beyond comprehension.
In what way has he caused deaths? I think everything has been explained to you guys but you choose to ignore it.
NY's Cuomo, de Blasio Delayed Distancing, Increasing Death Toll
By Marisa Herman
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Early inactions by New York’s leaders could have contributed to a higher death toll in the coronavirus crisis.
The New York Times reports that initial efforts by the state’s officials to combat the coronavirus outbreak were delayed and could have led to the city becoming the epicenter of the pandemic.
The first confirmed coronavirus case in New York City took place on March 1. A woman traveling home from Iran on Flight 701 from Doha, Qatar to John F. Kennedy International Airport in late February tested positive.
The next day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio held a news conference promising to track down everyone on that flight. They didn’t.
A day later a lawyer from New Rochelle, who had no travel history, tested positive indicating the community spread of the virus was underway. Health officials now know the virus likely was already in New York prior to the first confirmed case.
On March 5, de Blasio was telling the public not to worry and to go about their normal activities. New York leaders touted having the best hospitals in the world and that plans to contain the spread were in place.
Several days before that Gov. Cuomo expressed a similar standpoint.
“Excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers — I speak for the mayor also on this one — we think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York,” Cuomo said on March 2 during a press conference. “So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
But that wasn’t the case and New York’s cases continued to grow. New York reported back-to-back record numbers of deaths this week with 731 deaths announced on Tuesday and 779 announced Wednesday. The overall death toll in New York is 6,268 people.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former commissioner of the city’s Health Department told The New York Times if the state and city had adopted widespread social-distancing measures a week or two earlier, including closing schools, stores and restaurants, then the estimated death toll from the outbreak might have been reduced by 50 to 80 percent.
New York mandated distancing measures after other states like California and Washington took action. San Francisco closed its school on March 12 with 18 confirmed cases. de Blasio did not shutter schools until three days later and the county in Manhattan was already at 329 cases.
At times de Blasio and Cuomo disagreed on how to handle shut downs. After de Blasio closed schools, he suggested implementing other changes to daily life. Cuomo preferred a gradual shutdown and said the mayor had a poor communication strategy.
The infighting and delay on implementing health-safety measures failed to keep up with the pace the virus was spreading throughout the state.
“This is an enemy that we have underestimated from Day 1,” Cuomo told The New York Times. “And we have paid the price dearly.”
The wild part is, with Joe Biden at the helm you have an uphill fight against 4 more years.
I think it will be much like the 2016 election in reverse. It won't be about Biden being a good candidate. It will be about how bad Trump has been.
Sadly that's what we're reduced to.
I actually had this thought when I saw some snarky post about how Sleepy Joe will get crushed by Trump in 2020.....and I was like, that sounds exactly like how Trump got elected.
I just wonder if Joe can hold up, he hasn't started out great. It's the "Blue no matter who" crew propping him up.
And I think it's Trump who helped create the "blue no matter who" crew.
In 2016 it was, "an outsider no matter who" crew. After watching his daily news conferences combined with his hateful rhetoric, I think people are searching anywhere for some sense of stability.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
