False Negatives

Virus Follies:  Well no one except everyone saw this one coming, Trump is no longer even pretending to like virus guru Anthony Fauci anymore.  For weeks now Trump’s Fox echo chamber has been attacking Fauci, then Senator Rand Paul went after him during this week’s hearing and now with the ground softened Trump is saying out loud the things that until now he’d only been saying in private, that Fauci isn’t really the maven everyone thinks he is, because who believes in science anyway. The thing that finally triggered Trump’s public disavowal was Fauci’s statement that opening schools comes with serious risks, as in increased morbidity and mortality.  Fauci didn’t say that schools would have to remain closed next semester, he just said that far more testing and contact tracing resources would have to be made available and that each region would have to make opening decisions based on their own infection rates.  In addition, he talked about the newly uncovered though still rare inflammation disease impacting children, the group that until recently everyone thought was emerging relatively unscathed.  Trump’s view is that Fauci’s comment on schools is unacceptable, out of his purview and, so what if a few kids perish, the economy has to get up and running or else.  He also called Fauci out for “playing all sides of the equation,” a variation of his favorite there are good people on both sides thing?  Additionally, Trump’s highly disturbed that during Tuesday’s zoom Senate Hearing Fauci agreed with Senator Bernie Sanders, that virus mortalities have been undercounted, largely as a result of deaths that took place before adequate testing was available.  That last point undercuts Trump who has consistently questioned mortality rates, claiming that too many deaths are being blamed on the virus, and by extension his failure to act sooner, particularly on the testing front.  As to testing, yesterday during the first hearing of House’s newly formed Select Committee on stimulus spending, Jim “Gym” Jordan attacked the first expert to testify for having the nerve to say that in part the US failure to get ahead of COVID 19 had a lot to do with our testing inadequacies, a fact widely acknowledged by experts who cite South Korea’s early testing capability and commitment to tracing as key to their ability to minimize their infection and death rates.  Jordan called any suggestion that our well documented testing failures have anything to do with the spread of the virus as proof that the Select Committee has been set up to attack Trump.  Of course he did, because why would anyone want to learn anything that might position us to do better going forward.  Also on the testing front, it turns out that the false negatives levels from those quick result Abbott virus testing kits touted by Trump and used at the White House may be as high as 50% which probably explains why Trump is keeping as far away from VP Pence as possible; though Pence is still going to work, he’s interacting with no one and, unlike Trump, is wearing a face mask at all times.  Hmmm. Calling Nikki Haley?

The Usual Suspects:  Early yesterday, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was released from prison to home confinement “due to his age related vulnerability to the virus” even though he doesn’t have COVID 19, he’s met none of the criteria for early release and there has been no outbreak of COVID at his prison. Notably former fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen, who had been days away from being released from his virus infested prison, had his early release revoked, allegedly because he had not yet served half of his sentence.  Who would have guessed that turning on Trump has consequences but that sticking by him gets you an early release?  Despite Attorney General Barr’s Trump endorsed shenanigans, that other Trump loyalist former national security advisor Michael Flynn may face a bumpy road going forward. Yesterday, Emmet Sullivan, the Judge overseeing his case, appointed a well-respected retired judge to evaluate the events surrounding the Justice Department’s decision to drop the charges against Flynn.  In particular Sullivan wants his appointee to determine if Flynn should face an additional charge of perjury for twice saying under oath that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, the very charge that the Justice Department no longer wants to pursue. Additionally, last night it was revealed that though the Barr Justice Department “based” its decision to drop the charges against Flynn on some notes about interview strategy written by former Head of FBI counterintelligence agent Bill Priestap, they failed to provide Judge Sullivan with their notes from an interview with Priestap.  That interview largely undercuts the Barr/Trump assertion that Flynn was treated unfairly.  On the Obamagate front, the newest incarnation of the blame everything on the nefarious actions of Obama and his team, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who in addition to still being the Ambassador to Germany is one of Trump’s most loyal toadies, released the names of the Obama administration individuals who unmasked Michael Flynn’s identity as the individual who had the questionable conversation about lifting sanctions with Russia Ambassador Kislyak.  Grenell provided those names to Republican Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley.  As expected that list includes a lot of senior level Obama people including Obama, then VP Biden, former FBI Director James Comey and then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.  That’s not surprising and shouldn’t be controversial, it’s to be expected that senior people would be told that a Trump advisor and possible future Trump official was engaging in possibly treasonous conversations with the Russian Ambassador.  That said, Trump’s echo chamber is trying to turn this into proof that Obama and his team were engaged in a conspiracy against Trump. Don’t be fooled, this is just another attempt by Trump to distract from his virus failure and the economic downturn.  The Obama guys were just doing their job.  By the way, it wasn’t just Obama’s team who were concerned about Flynn, then Trump transition manager former Governor NJ Chris Christie warned Trump not to appoint Flynn to any position, of course Christie was subsequently pushed aside for prosecuting Jared Kushner’s father. And of course Trump fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence.

Et Cetera: Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler isn’t the only one in trouble for insider trading off of the coronavirus pandemic.  Late last night the LA Times reported that the FBI served North Carolina Senator Richard Burr with a warrant for his cell phone.  They are seeking to learn more about the questionable stock trades that he made after learning, as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the expected virus onslaught. Though Burr generally toes the Republican party line, his committee has issued several reports concurring with the intelligence agencies conclusions that Russia weighed in on the 2016 election on behalf on Trump; to state the obvious none of those reports have pleased Trump.  A suspicious sort might think that Trump wouldn’t mind if Burr suffered a little or a lot. In other news, Fed Chair Powell says that now is not the time to hold back on further stimulus, he said that while pointing out that 40% of those with household incomes below $40,000 lost their jobs in March.  Trump and the Republican led Senate aren’t so sure about more stimulus, at least for now they are rejecting the House’s push for another $3 trillion COVID aid package, something about not wanting to help out those blue states or run up more debt.  Remember, debt only matters when it helps blue states.