April 6, 2020
Democrats are proving to be incapable of putting aside their political agenda, even during the worst crisis in modern times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats could not even refrain from filling the CARES Act relief bill intended to help small businesses, and cash-strapped Americans, with a litany of unrelated progressive wish-list spending and regulatory proposals.
Now at the height of the global pandemic, Pelosi has announced that she is empowering a House committee “to examine all aspects of the federal response to the Coronavirus, and to assure that the taxpayer dollars are being wisely and efficiently spent..”.
Never mind that written into the CARES Act relief bill are three oversight mechanisms. This includes the creation of an inspector general, a congressionally appointed commission, and a “Pandemic Response accountability Committee”. There are ample provisions already in place to oversee the federal response and the distribution of federal funds. There is no need for a fourth oversight committee.
Clearly, the objective of this fourth committee is to conduct another partisan investigation to damage the Trump administration. Evidencing that the formation of this committee is politically driven, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has been chosen to be the Chair.
Reminder- On a recorded conference call, before the passage of the CARES Act relief bill with more than 200 House Democrats, Clyburn encouraged his colleagues to exploit the bill to advance their progressive agenda. Further, vociferous Trump critic Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been tasked with drafting the legislation.
If there was any doubt that this newly formed committee will be used as a political weapon against the president, appearing on CNN with Jake Tapper Pelosi stated that Trump should be held personally responsible for the loss of American lives. When asked by Tapper,
“Are you saying his downplaying ultimately cost American lives?” Pelosi responded, “Yes I am.”
Pelosi should be careful with her accusations. On February 24, she traveled to San Francisco’s China Town claiming that it was “perfectly safe”. Surrounded by a crowd, Pelosi stated, “Come to China Town…Come join us.”
Feb. 24th Nancy Pelosi was encouraging people to “come to Chinatown”. Yet she has the nerve to propose a House committee to search for failings of the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic!
pic.twitter.com/aAf6Jv1dqq— The Conservative Read🇺🇸 (@theconread) April 4, 2020
An examination of the government’s response to the pandemic, to improve future preparedness actions, would be beneficial. But, it’s hard to believe that the same lawmakers who for almost four years have been trying to destroy Trump’s presidency, intend to conduct a nonpartisan investigation for the benefit of the country.
Let’s not forget that when China first announced the discovery of a novel coronavirus, on December 31, the Democratic party was deep into their political impeachment of the president. The House announced an impeachment inquiry in late-September. It wasn’t until February 5 that Trump was acquitted in the senate.
It is undeniable that the Democrats’ partisan impeachment diverted the country’s attention and resources at a critical time in our country.
On January 24, three days after the first case of the virus in the United States, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander organized a briefing on the virus. Only 14 senators attended. Why might this be? It was the same day as a deadline for senators to submit their impeachment questions.
According to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee,
“The Intelligence committee’s work on every topic essentially came to a halt for months while impeachment was going through the House.”
As the head of the intelligence committee, Schiff had access to the same classified information as the president and his administration. Yet, not only did he not sound any alarms, Nunes stated,
“Schiff did not arrange a briefing on (coronavirus) until after impeachment ended.”
The left’s claim that Trump did not react early-on to protect American lives is belied by the facts. On the same day as the first U.S. confirmed case, January 21, the Trump administration assembled a coronavirus task force. Just ten days later, Trump declared the Coronavirus a public health emergency, and implemented a travel ban on travelers from China, along with mandatory quarantines of Americans who had traveled to China.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this was the first quarantine order issued by the federal government in 50 years. The unanimous consensus among medical professionals is that the travel ban saved thousands of American lives.
At the time, many criticized Trump for this early action. One of the critics was the leading Democratic candidate for president- Joe Biden who called the travel ban “xenophobic” and “hysterical”.
Moreover, in the four Democratic debates from January – February, the only time the virus was mentioned was in the last debate on February 25th.
The media has criticized Trump for the optimistic statements he has made during the crisis. However, early-on even highly respected medical professionals downplayed the virus. On January 26th the Director of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stated on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show, “The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States. It isn’t something that the American public needs to worry about..”
Dr. Deborah Brix, a world-renowned infectious disease specialist, and White House coronavirus response coordinator has explained that the models which guided the United States’ early responses, were based on data supplied by China. Unfortunately, everyone now knows, that data was false. At a news conference last week Dr. Birx stated-
“The medical community made-interpreted the Chinese data:This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected. Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data..”
Most on the left gloss over the fact that China lied to the world. Evidence indicates that Chinese officials knew that there was a novel contagious virus in their country as early as November, yet they hid it and allowed it to spread into a global pandemic. Only the day after the first confirmed case appeared in the United States, in late January, did China finally admit that the virus could be passed between people.
According to a March 13 study by the University of Southampton in England, 95% of the coronavirus cases in the world could have been prevented if China had responded to the outbreak just three weeks earlier than it did.
However, placing blame on China, will not damage Trump’s presidency, or his re-election chances. Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media and most Democratic lawmakers would rather defend communist China, and weaponize a global pandemic, than allow Trump to receive any credit for his leadership through this dual health and economic crisis.
