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.