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COVERUP

‘They Engaged in a Cover-Up’: Former DOD Special Counsel Exposes How Trump and Team ‘Lied’ About Coronavirus Threat

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A former U.S. Dept. of Defense Special Counsel is accusing President Donald Trump and his administration of lying to America and engaging in a “cover up” about just how great a threat the new novel coronavirus was.

“The president and senior officials manipulated Americans and played down the severity of the pandemic,” writes Ryan Goodman, who is now a professor at New York University School of Law, in a New York Times opinion piece, along with his student Danielle Schulkin.

Goodman, who is also co-editor-in-chief at the Just Security forum, and Schulkin write that “even when so many lives were at stake,” Trump and team during the last five days of February, “engaged in a cover-up.”

Thanks to information streaming in from U.S. intelligence agencies for months, officials reportedly believed that a “cataclysmic” disease could infect 100 million Americans and discussed lockdown plans. The warnings were given to Mr. Trump in his daily brief by the intelligence community; in calls from Alex Azar, the secretary of health; and in memos from his economic adviser Peter Navarro.

All that was unknown to the public until the CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier warned reporters of what would be the coronavirus pandemic. Trump wanted to fire her for it.

“The president’s stated concerns were specific. He didn’t want to upset the markets or China during trade talks, and it appears he may have also simply been in denial, counting on his personal hunches and luck.”

Proving their cover up allegations Goodman and Schulkin cite remarks from HHS Secretary Alex Azar, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, and President Trump.

President Trump the last Wednesday in February “used the day’s news conference by the coronavirus task force, with Dr. Fauci alongside him, to lie to the public. ‘You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done,’ he told the American public. He and Mr. Azar would continue to make such assurances over the next two days — Mr. Azar in remarks before lawmakers and the president in statements from the White House and bellowed at political rallies.”

Reads the entire piece here.

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COVERUP

‘A Boldface Lie’: Former OSU Wrestler Says Jim Jordan Still Isn’t Telling the Truth About His Knowledge of Sexual Abuse

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Appearing on CNN’s “New Day,” with host Alisyn Camerota, former Ohio State University wrestler Adam DiSabato continued to press his case against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) after telling an Ohio House Civil Justice Committee that the Republican lawmaker covered up sexual assault while he was a OSU wrestling coach.

During his appearance, DiSabato revealed more details about his phone call from Jordan where he claimed the lawmaker begged and pleaded with him, building on his comments that “Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling… begging me to go against my brother.”

“He was begging me to go against my brother’s testimony, basically and come out with a statement. So I just listened to him and expressed I didn’t know what my brother was — his motives,” DiSabato explained. “I said I can’t really give you an answer right now. I’m in the middle of something and I said let me talk to my family and that was that. I kind of just brushed him off, you know, and that was the conversation.”

Asked about a statement from Jordan’s spokesperson claiming, “Congressman Jordan would never ask anyone to do anything but tell the truth,” DiSabato knocked it down without pause.

“I think it’s a boldface lie, because someone went to him and told him about an exam to his face and it’s been documented,” he explained. “There were several people that went up to him, we all complained. It was an open discussion in the locker room around anywhere we were at. But mostly when the physicals came around every year because, you know, it was a problem.”

Watch below:

 

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COVERUP

Pentagon Triples Number of US Troops With Traumatic Brain Injury After Iran Attack – Trump Said They Were Just ‘Headaches’

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The Pentagon has just announced 34 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries as a result of Iran’s missile attacks on U.S. Forces at Iraqi bases where they were hosted earlier this month. That’s more than three times the number of service members initially reported, eleven, and an upgrade from “possible” traumatic brain injuries.

President Donald Trump, hours after the missiles hit two U.S. bases declared “All is well!” and insisted there had been no injuries to American forces. He later dismissed the injuries as “not very serious” and “headaches, and a couple of other things.”

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) can lead to severe permanent brain damage and can be fatal.

On Wednesday the Commander-in-Chief was asked about the eleven U.S. service members who had been diagnosed with possible traumatic brain injuries as a result of Iran’s attack on U.S. Forces at Iraqi bases where they were hosted. Trump told a reporter they were just “headaches,” and became defensive quickly (video below.)

“I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things but I would say, and I can report, it is not very serious.”

“You don’t think that a  potential traumatic brain injury is very serious?” the reporter asked.

“Um, they told me about it numerous days later – you’d have to ask the Dept. of Defense,” Trump replied. “No, I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I’ve seen.”

That reporter was CBS News White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang. She later noted that “Trump has said many times that no Americans were hurt when Iran retaliated for the Soleimani strike, and that was a big reason he declared victory.”

That reason has been shredded, and Trump has made no effort to correct his remarks, and shown no concern for the now 34 service members.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance weighed in, saying, “34 with TBI, in a crisis that looked like it was manufactured by Trump to distract from impeachment.”

“Pentagon officials have said there had been no effort to minimize or delay information on concussive injuries,” Reuters reports, “but its handling of the injuries following Tehran’s attack has renewed questions over the U.S. military’s policy regarding how it deals with suspected brain injuries.”

Here’s Trump dismissing TBIs as mere “headaches” earlier this week:

 

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