#0424 – Washington Post Runs a Debunked Conspiracy Story for the Sole Purpose of Trying to Damage President Trump

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FILE – In this file photograph taken Nov. 1, 2007, the masthead of The Washington Post is displayed on the office building, in Washington. The Washington Post Co. is reporting a surge in second-quarter earnings, helped by a big jump in profits at its education division and lower expenses. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Yesterday, the Washington Post proved, as if proof were even needed, that they are no longer a left-leaning, establishment friendly newspaper but they are a blatant propaganda outlet beholden to the Democrat Party that will shamelessly circulate obvious lies that have been debunked on several occasions if they thing the lies will harm President Trump.

The story is President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat.

U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.

For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences.

If this looks familiar, well, it should. Two weeks ago, the New York Times ran the same story: He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.

About the same time, ABC ran a thoroughly false story Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources. This story was so rife with falsehoods that it generated a extraordinarily rare denial by the agency that such a report ever existed.

 

A month ago, the same WaPo reporters did the same basic story U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic.

The Washington Post story does not cite a single source nor does it provide a single document to back up its claim, That is not new ground for the lead reporter, Ellen Nakashima, has made a career of writing stories based on sources who, if they even existed, turned out be either pathological liars or DeepStaters plying a credulous NeverTrump reporter with information that is just too, too good to check:

 

 

The Post tries to differentiate this particular version of a multiply debunked lie by saying:

The frequency with which the coronavirus was mentioned in the PDB has not been previously reported, and U.S. officials said it reflected a level of attention comparable to periods when analysts have been tracking active terrorism threats, overseas conflicts or other rapidly developing security issues.

Again, no evidence. No examples of the warnings are produced. No count of the warnings given. Just a bald assertion that this was some serious sh** being reported and Trump refused to act. The denial of the factual basis for the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was relegated to this mush in paragraph 9:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for the PDB. In response to questions about the repeated mentions of coronavirus, a DNI official said, “The detail of this is not true.” The official declined to explain or elaborate.

 

The only reason why the Post keeps recycling this dog is this:

The warnings conveyed in the PDB probably will be a focus of any future investigation of the Trump administration handling of the pandemic. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in early April called for the formation of an independent commission analogous to the one created to investigate the Sept, 11, 2001, attacks.

There are several things to keep in mind here. First, the CIA probably has less capability in evaluating and reporting on a virus in China than Harvard University. Thus far, there has been zero documentary evidence that anything produced by the CIA or the other intelligence agencies was any more useful than what was obtained from nonclassified intelligence gathering from diplomats, travelers, and academics. The fact that something was stuck in the PDB doesn’t mean that something was particularly useful for anything other than ass-covering by the CIA should something happen. Remember the famous bin Laden warning the CIA claimed it had given Bush and the fraud that turned out to be…not that it stops the brain-scrambled left from regurgitating it.

 

By the timeframe covered by the WaPo story, not only was the Trump administration NOT ignoring the potential threat but was in high gear. This is from my post While the New York Times Was Shopping ChiCom Propaganda to the Nation, President Trump Was Trying to Keep Us Safe:

(hat tip to Steve Guest of the RNC for his timely assist on the below, give him a follow on Twitter if you don’t already)

December 31: China reports the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.

January 3: CDC Director Robert Redfield sent an email to the director of the Chinese CDC, George Gao, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China to investigate the coronavirus.

January 5: CDC Director Redfield sent another email to the Chinese CDC Director, George Gao, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China to investigate the coronavirus outbreak,

January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China, due to the spreading coronavirus.

January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.

January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.

January 17: The CDC began implementing public health entry screening at the 3 U.S. airports that received the most travelers from Wuhan – San Francisco, New York JFK, and Los Angeles.

January 20: Dr. Fauci announced the National Institutes of Health was already working on the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.

January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.

January 23: The CDC sought a “special emergency authorization” from the FDA to allow states to use its newly developed coronavirus test.

January 27: President Trump tweeted that he made an offer to President Xi Jinping to send experts to China to investigate the coronavirus outbreak.

January 27: The CDC issued a level III travel health notice urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China due to the coronavirus.

January 27: The White House Coronavirus Task Force started meeting to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President.

January 29: The White House announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President.

January 31: The Trump Administration:

  • Declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.
  • Announced Chinese travel restrictions.
  • Suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

January 31: The Department of Homeland Security took critical steps to funnel all flights from China into just 7 domestic U.S. airports.

February 3: The CDC had a team ready to travel to China to obtain critical information on the novel coronavirus, but were in the U.S. awaiting permission to enter by the Chinese government.

February 4: President Trump vowed in his State of the Union Address to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

February 6: The CDC began shipping CDC-Developed test kits for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus to U.S. and international labs.

February 7: President Trump told reporters that the CDC is working with China on the coronavirus.

February 9: The White House Coronavirus Task Force briefed governors from across the nation at the National Governors’ Association Meeting in Washington.

February 11: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expanded a partnership with Janssen Research & Development to “expedite the development” of a coronavirus vaccine.

February 12: The U.S. shipped test kits for the 2019 novel coronavirus to approximately 30 countries who lacked the necessary reagents and other materials.

February 12: The CDC was prepared to travel to China but had yet to receive permission from the Chinese government.

February 14: The CDC began working with five labs to conduct “community-based influenza surveillance” to study and detect the spread of coronavirus.

February 18: HHS announced it would engage with Sanofi Pasteur in an effort to quickly develop a coronavirus vaccine and to develop treatment for coronavirus infections.

February 22: A WHO team of international experts arrives in Wuhan, China.

February 24: The Trump Administration sent a letter to Congress requesting at least $2.5 billion to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.

February 26: President Trump discussed coronavirus containment efforts with Indian PM Modi and updated the press on his Administration’s containment efforts in the U.S. during his state visit to India.

February 29: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed certified labs to develop and begin testing coronavirus testing kits while reviewing pending applications.

February 29: The Trump Administration:

  • Announced a level 4 travel advisory to areas of Italy and South Korea.
  • Barred all travel to Iran.
  • Barred the entry of foreign citizens who visited Iran in the last 14 days.

March 3: The CDC lifted federal restrictions on coronavirus testing to allow any American to be tested for coronavirus, “subject to doctor’s orders.”

March 3: The White House announced President Trump donated his fourth-quarter salary to fight the coronavirus.

March 4: The Trump Administration announced the purchase of approximately 500 million N95 respirators over the next 18 months to respond to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

March 4: Secretary Azar announced that HHS was transferring $35 million to the CDC to help state and local communities that have been impacted most by the coronavirus.

March 6: President Trump signed an $8.3 billion bill to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

The bill provides $7.76 billion to federal, state, & local agencies to combat the coronavirus and authorizes an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.

March 9: President Trump called on Congress to pass a payroll tax cut over coronavirus.

March 10: President Trump and VP Pence met with top health insurance companies and secured a commitment to waive co-pays for coronavirus testing.

March 11: President Trump:

  • Announced travel restrictions on foreigners who had visited Europe in the last 14 days.
  • Directed the Small Business Administration to issue low-interest loans to affected small businesses and called on Congress to increase this fund by $50 billion.
  • Directed the Treasury Department to defer tax payments for affected individuals & businesses, & provide $200 billion in “additional liquidity.”
  • Met with American bankers at the White House to discuss coronavirus.

March 13: President Trump declared a national emergency in order to access $42 billion in existing funds to combat the coronavirus.

So either the warnings claimed to have been made in the PDB didn’t exist, or if they existed they were totally superfluous as actions were being taken over several agencies to react to the emergence of Wuhan virus while all the CIA could do was pen cover-your-ass memos.

The Post and Nakashima are doing is something that would have made Goebbels ecstatic. They are peddling a lie that they know to be a lie, referencing their own previous lies to give credence to the current lie, in the hopes that their lie, like the lie about Bush and the bin Laden warning, become accepted history.

 

 

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