As we know by now, one of the biggest outrages about Trump’s (mis)handling of the coronavirus crisis is that he ignored multiple intelligence reports about its potential severity dating back to January and February. That is one of many reasons why we should be demanding that he resign.
Well, ABC News reports that the klaxons were going off far sooner than that. It turns out that military intelligence was getting reports about how bad things were getting in Wuhan as far back as November.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.
The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.
According to those sources, this information was the subject of multiple briefings through December that reached as high as the National Security Council. It ultimately ended up in the President’s Daily Brief in early January. While the Pentagon denies such an assessment from the NCMI even existed, at least two additional sources say otherwise—the two sources familiar with the contents and two others who were briefed on it.
To say the least, this is a BFD. Nothing makes it into the President’s Daily Brief without several weeks of heavy vetting. But given the potential danger to Asian forces, at the very least he should have made it his business to be in the know about it before it made the Daily Brief.
As we now know, Trump admitted last week that he had reason to know that the pandemic could turn into a monster even as he was publicly downplaying it. To put this in perspective, imagine if Bush 43 had reason to know about an impending al-Qaeda attack ahead of 9-11 while publicly downplaying the terrorist threat. People would have been taking to the streets.
We can’t take to the streets now, but we can do the next best thing—sign this petition to demand that Trump either resign or give up his bid for reelection. For the sake of the historical record, we must show that we did not take this gross dereliction of duty lying down.
