Category: Unpresidential

Trump says he’s ‘strongly considering’ a full pardon for Michael Flynn

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President Donald Trump said Sunday he is “strongly considering” a full pardon of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

It was unclear what sparked Trump’s tweet Sunday, which came amid the coronavirus outbreak. Trump said “it is reported that” the FBI and the Justice Department “lost” records related to Flynn. Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, has accused the FBI of tampering with the interview notes of her client.

The Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about what Trump was referring to.

Although he pleaded guilty in late 2017, admitting he lied to the FBI about conversations during the Trump transition period with Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Flynn has sought to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging FBI misconduct. That has delayed his sentencing hearing, which had been scheduled to take place Feb. 27.

Last month, NBC News reported that the Justice Department had opened an inquiry into the FBI’s interview of Flynn while he briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser.

Attorney General William Barr asked the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Jeffrey Jensen, to review the matter, people familiar with the inquiry said.

In October, Trump tweeted that Flynn’s prosecution was “a disgrace.” Earlier last year, he asked “why was I not told” about Flynn’s being under investigation sooner “so that I could make a change?”

Barr’s efforts to take a heavier role in matters within the Justice Department that are of personal interest to the president, including the Flynn case and the sentencing of Trump associate Roger Stone, have come under scrutiny in recent months. Barr is set to testify later this month in front of the House Judiciary Committee about his personal involvement in cases relating to allies of the president (it’s unclear whether the coronavirus outbreak will delay the hearing).

Trump’s tweet Sunday comes nearly a month after he granted clemency to a series of people. He commuted the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was serving a lengthy prison term on corruption charges. Trump also pardoned former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was sentenced in 2010 to four years in prison after pleading guilty to felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.

[NBC News]

Trump Caught Google Off Guard With a Bogus Coronavirus Site Announcement

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President Donald Trump announced Friday that the US government’s coronavirus testing apparatus, which has lagged badly behind other developed nations, would soon get an assist from Google. The search and advertising giant will create a website, Trump said, that would help Americans figure out if they need a test for the virus, and if so where they can find one.

The only problem: There is no nationwide site like the one Trump described. And Google had no idea the president was going to mention one.

A source at Google tells WIRED that company leadership was surprised that Trump announced anything about the initiative at the press conference. What he did say was also almost entirely wrong. There will be a coronavirus testing site, not from Google but from Alphabet sister company Verily. “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing,” Google tweeted in a statement. “Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”

Even that, though, was not the original plan. As the Verge reported Friday afternoon, Verily had intended the site for health care workers only. After Trump unexpectedly publicized the effort, Verily decided it will let anyone visit it, but can still only provide people with testing site information in the San Francisco area. Google and Verily did not respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear whether senior Google leadership was aware of Trump’s plans, but CEO Sundar Pichai apparently made no reference to it in a company-wide memo about its coronavirus efforts Thursday, which was first reported by CNBC. In the memo, Pichai told employees that “a planning effort is underway” for Verily to “aid in the COVID-19 testing effort in the US.”

The disconnect is especially odd given how extensively Trump and other White House officials touted the website during Friday’s press conference. Google had 1,700 engineers working on it, Trump said. By Sunday, offered Vice President Mike Pence, they would be able to announce timing for the site’s availability. Recently appointed White House coronavirus coordinator Debbie Birx walked through how the site would work. “Clients and patients and people who have interest can fill out a screening questionnaire,” she said. If the answers indicate that they have symptoms for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the site will direct them to the nearest drive-through testing site. Once tested, they’ll get results within 24 to 36 hours. It sounded a bit like Google Maps: Pandemic Edition.

It’s unclear at this point the extent to which the Verily site will reflect that description. It’s part of a larger coronavirus testing package the White House announced, including partnerships with pharmacy giants CVS and Walgreens and retailers Target and Walmart. The tests themselves will be provided by biotech companies like Roche Diagnostics, which received approval for its version earlier Friday.

That the White House is finally treating testing with any kind of urgency is a welcome, if belated, push. But the apparent miscommunication—or outright misrepresentation—may bode poorly for the administration’s broader efforts. “What we have learned from past public health emergencies is the importance of clear, consistent, and accurate information that the public can use,” says Christopher Friese, professor in the University of Michigan School of Nursing. Friese’s comment was specifically about the importance of clarity in a testing information website, but also seems to apply more broadly.

Important questions remain about the Verily site itself, like how it handles data. At Friday’s press conference, Birx held up a flowchart that suggested visitors would have to log into the website to use it. “It is critically important that Google does not collect any personally identifiable information at the coronavirus website,” says Marc Rothstein, president of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. “And there should be no covert tracking techniques, such as the retention of IP addresses linked to identifiable users. Moreover, no one should be required to use a Google account to gain access to public health information.”

Most important, today’s White House presentation created confusion at a time when the US can least afford it. People will be looking for a site that tells them where to get tested; unless they live in a handful of zip codes, it will be useless to them for the foreseeable future. That Trump said untrue things about a focal point of his plan also does not engender confidence in the rest of the measures. The US needs reliable, wide-scale testing, now. Without that, the site issue is moot.

“Will patients who are indicated for testing actually be able to get tested,” says Friese. “There are ample credible reports that is not the case presently. If patients still cannot get tested, the website is nothing more than lipstick on a pig.”

Or, as it turns out, an empty lipstick tube.

[Wired]

Trump Snaps at ‘Nasty Question’ About Disbanding White House Pandemic Office in 2018

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President Donald Trump snapped at a reporter’s “nasty question” about his administration decimating the White House pandemic department in 2018.

PBS News reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked Trump on Friday during a coronavirus press conference about his claim he takes no responsibility for problems with the response to the pandemic.

“My first question is you said that you don’t take responsibility but you did disband the White House pandemic office and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that?” asked the PBS NewsHour reporter. “The officials that worked in that office said that the White House lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?”

“Well, I just think it’s a nasty question because what we’ve done, and Tony [Fauci] had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing,” President Trump responded. “And when you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people… I could have perhaps ask Tony about that because I don’t know anything about it. I mean you say we did that, I don’t know anything about it. It’s the administration, perhaps, they do that. You know people let people go.”

“You used to be with a different newspaper than you are now, you know things like that happen,” he continued, before adding, “We are doing a great job. Let me tell you, these professionals behind me and these great incredible doctors and business people, the best in the world, and I can say that whether it’s retailers or labs or anything you want to say.”

“These are the best in the world,” President Trump concluded. “We are doing a great job.”

[Mediaite]

Media

‘I don’t take responsibility at all’: Trump deflects blame for coronavirus testing fumble

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President Donald Trump on Friday deflected blame for his administration’s lagging ability to test Americans for the coronavirus outbreak, insisting instead — without offering evidence — that fault lies with his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said defiantly, pointing to an unspecified “set of circumstances” and “rules, regulations and specifications from a different time.”

The remarks from the president came in response to questions at a Friday press conference about the lack of widespread access to testing, an aspect of his administration’s coronavirus response that has been the subject of widespread, steady criticism. Administration officials told lawmakers yesterday that the U.S. tested about 11,000 people during the first seven weeks of the outbreak — roughly as many as South Korea is testing each day.

And Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that “the system is not really geared to what we need right now” in and called the testing system “a failing.”

But Trump, who spent weeks downplaying coronavirus before declaring it a national emergency on Friday, argued that the health care system was not designed for an outbreak on the scale of coronavirus, “with the kind of numbers that we are talking about.”

The president kept his criticism lighter and more forward-looking at first, declaring that his administration is “leaving a very indelible print in the future in case something like this happens again.”

“That’s not the fault of anybody — and frankly the old system worked very well for smaller numbers, much smaller numbers but not for these kind of numbers,” he added.

But then Fauci stepped up to the mic to clarify his position, arguing that the CDC’s testing system, “for what it was designed for, it worked very well,” and maintaining that an “embrace” of the private sector was necessary for testing at the kind of scale needed for the fast-spreading coronavirus.

Then, Trump began pointing fingers.

“If you go back — please, if you go back to the swine flu, it was nothing like this. they didn’t do testing like this,” he interjected, referencing the 2009 H1N1 pandemic that sickened more than 60 million people between April 2009 and 2010. Trump asserted that the Obama administration “didn’t do testing” and that when “they started thinking about testing,” it was “far too late.”

He reiterated a claim made on Twitter earlier in the day, calling the Obama administration’s response to the swine flu outbreak “a very big failure,” though the H1N1’s fatality rate of .02 percent is much lower than the lowest fatality estimates for the coronavirus thus far.

Trump later got testy with another reporter who pressed him on whether he bore any responsibility for the surge in cases, noting that he’d disbanded the White House’s pandemic office.

Trump told the reporter, PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor — with whom he’s butted heads with in the past — that her inquiry was a “nasty question.”

After noting that his administration had quickly acted to restrict travel from China, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, the president said he personally was not responsible for dissolving the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which had been part of the National Security Council until his administration disbanded it and rolled its officials into another office.

[Politico]

Trump condemns CDC for lack of coronavirus testing, blames Obama

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President Donald Trump on Friday criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being ill-prepared to test for the coronavirus and he blamed former President Barack Obama for the situation.

“For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further,” he wrote.

In a follow-up tweet, Trump continued his broadside: “Their response to H1N1 Swine flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!”

During the announcement on Friday afternoon that he would be declaring a national emergency, Trump again assigned blame to others.

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all,” he said about the delays. “Because we were given a set of circumstances.”

On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified at a House hearing that the U.S. has failed to meet the capacity for testing.

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” he said. “That is a failing. Let’s admit it.”

Two issues have led to the slow process in testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. One was that the CDC had initially put out narrow guidelines for who could be considered for testing. Those criteria were eventually expanded and so far about 11,000 specimens have been tested, according to the agency. South Korea, on the other hand, has been testing nearly 20,000 people each day for the disease, according to reports.

There were also technical issues with the test kits in which they tested for more than just the coronavirus, and the glitch affected the integrity of the kit.

Trump tweeted Thursday that “Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 epidemic which killed thousands of people,” and said that “the response was one of the worst on record.”

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded that Trump should focus on fighting the current outbreak instead of “desperately tweeting lies about the Obama-Biden Administration.”

[NBC News]

Reality

From an AP Fact check:

His newfound disdain for the CDC’s actions and his criticisms of Obama and Biden are based on a faulty description of what happened in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, initially called “swine flu.”

Then, the CDC’s flu surveillance network actually sounded the alarm, spotting two children in California who were the first diagnosed cases of the new flu strain. About two weeks later, the U.S. declared a public health emergency and CDC began releasing anti-flu drugs from the national stockpile to help hospitals get ready. Trump declared a state of emergency Friday, seven weeks after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was announced.

Testing wasn’t the primary concern then. The huge challenge was finding a vaccine.

The new flu popped up in April, too late to insert into vaccine already being brewed for that fall. Switching strains was scientifically doable but it took months to grow the new flu virus in eggs and extract it to make a second, separate vaccine that didn’t become available until November, when the new flu was waning.

That vaccine delay prompted the CDC and National Institutes of Health to spur research into new ways to make flu vaccine faster, by skipping having to grow the virus in eggs. Today egg-based shots still are most common but there are some faster-to-produce competitors. And NIH is pursuing a universal flu vaccine that one day might cover all strains in one dose, but is still years away.

On the testing front, 2009 does offer a bit of caution. While CDC’s lab test didn’t have the types of problems it has had with COVID-19, the agency did warn that some “rapid” tests that doctors used varied in accuracy. So far there are no rapid tests for COVID-19.

As for thousands dying, it actually turned out that the new H1N1 strain was less deadly than average seasonal flu. But even that comparison is problematic, because regular flu years are deadliest for the elderly while H1N1 was riskiest for younger people.

Trump’s accusation that Obama introduced further complications appears to refer to a false point he has made before.

Food and Drug Administration guidance drafted during the Obama administration called for tighter regulation of so-called laboratory-developed tests, a market traditionally not overseen by the agency. Trump says that step made it more difficult to come out with a coronavirus test. But that guidance never took effect. And if it had, it would not have applied to public health emergencies like the current one.

Pence: ‘I don’t think there’s confusion’ after clarifications to Trump’s coronavirus address

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Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday dismissed suggestions that there was confusion surrounding President Donald Trump’s address to the nation about coronavirus despite the administration having to later make clarifications about travel restrictions.

“I don’t think there’s confusion,” Pence, who is leading the administration’s response to the crisis, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day” Thursday. But he was unable to provide figures on how many Americans have been tested for the virus, which has been a key question as the crisis has spread throughout the country and disrupted everyday life.

Speaking to the nation Wednesday night, Trump announced that “all travel from Europe to the United States” would be banned for 30 days beginning Friday, with exceptions for the United Kingdom. After Trump’s remarks, the administration clarified that the travel restriction did not apply to Americans or US permanent residents, nor did it apply to all of Europe but to nations in the Schengen zone.

Trump was also forced to clarify he was not blocking goods from Europe, despite saying in his address that his ban would “apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo” across the Atlantic.

On CNN Thursday, Pence elaborated on the travel restrictions, saying that Americans coming home will be funneled through 13 different airports, where they will be screened for the novel coronavirus. Americans and legal residents returning to the US will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days, Pence said.

“We’ve recognized, our health experts tracking global data, that the epicenter of the coronavirus has shifted from China and South Korea to Europe,” the vice president said.

Pence also defended the administration’s handling of testing for the virus. The availability of test kits to health care providers has been one of the most scrutinized aspects of the federal government’s response to the crisis, leading to frustrations from state and local officials, and there has been confusion among Trump administration officials over the number of testing kits that have been mailed out.

Pence said he didn’t believe the numbers of tests being performed were declining, despite what was listed on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website in recent days.

Asked how many tests have been done, Pence replied, “Well, I would leave that to the experts.”

As of Monday, public health labs in all 50 states and Washington, DC, are able to test for novel coronavirus, according to the CDC. But the vice president said Thursday it’s “going to take a few more days” to make commercial testing for COVID-19 widely and readily available for the general public.

“The overall recommendation to Americans is to use common sense, practice good hygiene, and keep a special eye on seniors with chronic underlying health conditions,” Pence said.

Speaking to CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also was unable to say how many Americans have been tested.

As of Thursday morning, there have been 38 deaths and over 1,200 cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to CNN’s tally.

[CNN]

Trump calls coronavirus a ‘foreign virus’ in Oval Office address

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President Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night.

The characterization of the global pandemic as a foreign virus aligns with how some Trump allies have described the coronavirus in recent days, which critics have called xenophobic.

“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” the President said.

“I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus.”

The rare Oval Office address to the nation by Trump came as his administration has faced harsh criticism for his response to the pandemic. The President said he was “marshaling the full power of the federal government” to confront the growing public health crisis, including a monthlong halt in travel from Europe to the United States.

The address came the same day the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, with more than 1,200 cases in the US.

The outbreak has not just sparked fear and anxiety in countries like the US and the UK — it has also seen a rise in xenophobic and racist assaults against people of East Asian, and particularly Chinese, descent. And panic over the virus continues to pummel the Chinese business sector in cities like New York, where fear of the disease has driven people away from east Asian neighborhoods.

The President’s reference to the virus as “foreign” echoes a tweet he shared earlier this week promoting a US southern-border wall as a way to protect Americans from the “China Virus.”

Trump, adding his own comment to the tweet, said, “Going up fast. We need the Wall more than ever!”
The post was met with fierce pushback from critics, including Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, who tweeted, “A wall won’t stop a virus. Racism won’t stop a virus.

“Do your job.”

[CNN]

Reality

Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night, echoing Fox News and Republicans who have sought to frame the Chinese people as “bat eaters” from an “uncivilized world.”

The White House had to issue a correction after Trump was unable to read directly from a teleprompter and announced he is banning goods trade from Europe although he is not banning goods trade from Europe.

“And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval,” Trump said. “Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.”

The White House quickly noted that the restrictions were focused on people, not boxes, and Trump later appeared to clarify his remarks in a tweet.

Media

Trump snaps at CNN’s Acosta for asking about health officials contradicting his coronavirus claims

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President Donald Trump snapped at CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking about the White House’s own officials who contradict what the president says about the coronavirus.

“What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?” asked Acosta.

“That’s CNN. Fake news,” Trump dismissed the question.

Trump was speaking after a meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, which happened as the Dow Jones hit “bear market” territory at its close Wednesday. He took a few questions from the press during the photo opportunity, and Acosta asked the question. Trump was furious and kicked the press out.

“Tried to ask Trump to respond to Americans who are concerned he’s not taking situation seriously enough and that his statements don’t match what health experts are saying. He did not answer the question,” tweeted Acosta.

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump pushes back on Vanity Fair report he’s ‘melting down’ over coronavirus

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President Trump pushed back on a Vanity Fair article Wednesday that reported he is “melting down” over the coronavirus.

The article, published Monday, cites a person close to the administration saying Trump is “definitely melting down over this,” referring to the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump hit back, saying that the magazine “will soon be out of business,” and claiming “their third rate Fake reporters, who make up sources which don’t exist, wrote yet another phony & boring hit piece.”

“The facts are just the opposite,” the president tweeted. “Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!”

The article, written by Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, says the source close to the administration said the president is afraid journalists are trying to get coronavirus to infect him on Air Force One. The president also asked the Secret Service to set up a program and ban anyone who has a cough on the White House grounds, according to the story.  

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called the article “100% fake news” on Monday, the day it was published.

“@gabrielsherman did not reach out to me,” she said. “False & sensational writing on this topic is irresponsible. POTUS has spent plenty of time w the press pool – simply ask ur colleagues. Nothing about your little college essay is funny or true & I want a retraction.”

Trump has praised the government’s efforts to contain the virus and send out tests. The president decided against taking a test for the virus after his physician said he didn’t it wasn’t necessary.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal. I would do it. I don’t feel any reason. I feel extremely good. I feel very good, but I guess it’s not a big deal to get tested and it’s something I would do,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

[The Hill]

Trump campaign chief is funneling pay to Eric Trump’s wife, Don Jr.’s girlfriend

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President Donald Trump’s campaign manager is quietly channeling money to Eric Trump’s wife, Lara Trump, and Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, The New York Times reported Monday.

The payments are hidden from public view because they’re made through campaign manager Paul Parscale’s private company, Parscale Strategy, based in San Antonio, sources told the Times. Typically, such payments would be part of public filings required by the Federal Election Commission so that donors can find out how their contributions are being used — in this case, to pay members of the president’s family.

The family benefits are linked to a network of politically connected private companies — operating with the support and help of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — that have charged roughly $75 million since 2017 to the Trump reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee and other Republican clients, according to the Times. 

Guilfoyle last year angrily confronted Parscale about late checks owed to her, two witnesses told the Times. He reportedly promised that the situation would be rectified by his wife, Candice Parscale, who often handles his company accounts.

One of Lara Trump’s most notorious contributions to her father-in-law’s campaign early this year was to mock rival Joe Biden’s stutter, which he has grappled with since he was a child.

She was initially hired as a senior consultant in early 2017 by another Parscale company, digital vender Giles-Parscale, also based in San Antonio, The Associated Press reported. Lara Trump was to serve as a liaison between the company and Donald Trump’s campaign, headquartered in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, which is owned by the president’s Trump Organization. Parscale was named Trump’s reelection campaign manager the following year. 

The Trump campaign announced in January that Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality who stated dating Trump Jr. two years ago, would lead the joint fundraising drive between the campaign and the RNC.

Guilfoyle left Fox News in 2018 following a human resources investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior, including sexual misconduct, HuffPost reported at the time. An attorney for Guilfoyle denied all accusations as “unequivocally baseless.”

HuffPost could not immediately reach Parscale for comment.

Parscale declined to comment to the Times “in detail” on the article, the paper reported. He has, however, said in the past that private companies provide greater flexibility in a campaign, given campaign finance law requirements, noted the Times.  

[AOL]

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