A mini outbreak of Coronavirus is happening in the Trump Administration.
By Monday everyone in the White House (except for Trump and Pence) were required to wear a mask when not at their desk. Trump also gave a press conference saying that “America leads the world in testing” and “we have met the moment and we have prevailed,” and “if somebody wants to be tested right now, they’ll be able to be tested.” The New York Times pints out: Though the United States has ramped up testing from 150,000 tests per day from a month ago to 300,000 per day recently, the current rate still remains far behind the five million daily target he himself set last month.
Two of the federal government’s top health officials painted a grim picture of the months ahead on Tuesday, warning a Senate committee that the coronavirus pandemic was far from contained… Dr. Fauci’s remarks, along with those of Dr. Redfield, contradicted Mr. Trump’s growing insistence that the nation has put the coronavirus behind it.
Meanwhile, “Over Mother’s Day and then through Monday—and who knows, perhaps continuing today—Trump has fired off hundreds of rounds of weapons-grade lunacy on Twitter.” Including something called “Obamagate.”
According to Tim Miller in The Bulwark: Trump’s allies in the conservative media and the Justice Department are taking #Obamagate very seriously. This conspiracy theory is informing our foreign policy, millions in tax dollars are being spent in an effort that is going “full throttle” to prove that it is correct, and countless Americans are being fed a faux history involving a crime that supposedly “makes Watergate look small time.”
Senator Burr stepped down from the Senate Intelligence Committee as news broke this week that the FBI issued a warrant for his cell phone and other records over his stock trading scheme.
On Saturday there was a 2020 Graduation ceremony broadcast on all the networks. Obama gave the closing remarks.
Trump fired the State Department Inspector General on Friday night.
In Russia News
More Flynn drama this week. The FBI investigator whose notes the DOJ used to say the Flynn interview was improper did an interview with DOJ about the matter that was not shared with the Judge: That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.
The judge in the Flynn Case, Emmet Sullivan, appointed a former judge to asses whether Flynn lied and committed perjury: He is essentially bringing in an outsider to represent the point of view of the original prosecutors in the case, who believed Mr. Flynn had committed a crime before Mr. Barr intervened and essentially replaced them with a prosecutor willing to say he had not.
COVID-19 Cases / Deaths: 1,435,098 / 87,315
–Trump’s Job Approval: 44%