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ICYMI, Matt Pottinger commissioned a 30,000 word screed to cover up his failure to contain COVID in the US. This was the most hagiographic piece of journalistic fiction I read in 2020. It’s as accurate as the score in a round of golf with Kim Jong-Il 1/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year
Here’s a brief summary to save you some eye bleach: “Me, my brother, and my wife did the best we could. The rest of the administration, state and local governments, corporate America, and the US people failed.” 2/
“Depending on whether the COVID response is portrayed positively or not, I either heroically led – or was just a powerless pawn on – the COVID Interagency Task Force” 3/
“Depending on whether the China travel ban is being described as a disruptive, useless gesture, or a gutsy, farsighted call that protected America, I either came up with the idea – or had nothing to do with it” 4/
“Depending on whether I think I’ll need a corroborating witness for congressional hearings or not, I may or may not have hired my wife’s former boss, Deborah Birx” 5/
“The Chinese fooled the US CDC, the US intelligence community, the WHO, and the entire world – but not me.” 6/
“But I fooled America into thinking travel bans work. Because they totally do, just not when America does them” 7/
“The entire US medical establishment was against wearing masks, except me” 8/
“I came up with Operation Warp Speed, even though everyone else involved doesn’t seem to remember me being there” 9/
“I totally did not commission this piece, even though my name is mentioned more than twice as many times as that of Dr. Fauci in what’s supposed to be a 2020 retrospective on COVID” 10/
“And I’m not going to say anything about Helen Chu or how the WHO, China, or even South Korea could have helped solve America’s testing crisis in the most important month of COVID: February 2020” 11/
“And… because I had nothing to do with testing issues and my travel ban worked, I totally was not involved in two clear policy errors which ultimately caused 350,000 excess COVID deaths in the United States” 12/
So with that out of the way, let’s get into the weeds of unpacking how Matt Pottinger did kill 350,000 Americans.
He made two major errors: first, he assumed – in late January – that a travel ban would slow down the rate at which America would get COVID
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He made two major errors: first, he assumed – in late January – that a travel ban would slow down the rate at which America would get COVID
13/
When Pottinger first heard of COVID, he immediately jumped to a travel ban above all other options – which everyone – even his own brother – thought was an ineffective idea 14/
But Pottinger persisted with picking that option in the face of scientific evidence. Why? Because he wanted to hit China – and help Taiwan 15/
Taiwan was first to ban travel from China, but they did it less to contain COVID than to push a hard line on China. They even let in a COVID-infested Japanese cruise ship one month after their China travel ban 16/
Taiwan was trying to extend its travel ban on China worldwide in late January, while containing COVID in the country so as to isolate its ideological rival 17/
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that COVID was in the US as early as mid-December 2019 18/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-likely-in-u-s-in-mid-december-2019-cdc-scientists-report-11606782449
And COVID was found in Italy as early as November 2019 19/ https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1345438947137236993
But even back in Jan 2020, public health officials were adamantly telling Pottinger that travel bans did not work vs airborne respiratory illnesses, because by the time they’re detected in one city, they’ve already spread to many travel hubs 20/
However… Matt sold his travel ban as being effective anyways – as a visible (if futile) gesture that gave Trump a political out while critics lambasted him for doing very little 21/ https://apnews.com/article/0dc271ad7f7917374a5a0cfb49273783
Unfortunately, the China travel ban did precious little for actually saving American lives, but that’s besides the point for our “warrior of narratives” 22/
Matt’s second mistake was screwing up testing in the United States while he thought the ban was protecting America in a misguided attempt to pwn the Chinese and the WHO 23/
The article makes it sound like testing is Azar’s fault, but Pottinger never proposed any solution to the crisis, even though he knew of multiple viable options – which he blocked 24/
That’s right: Pottinger – not just HHS Secretary Azar – was one of the main drivers for continuing with the CDC test kits and keeping the FDA restrictions in place 25/
How? 1) Matt wanted to ice out the WHO, which had a viable test, from the US COVID response, since they were refusing to allow Taiwan into the organization due to Chinese pressure 26/
And 2) from early Feb onwards China was donating viable tests to any countries who wanted them – even historical enemies like Japan 27/ http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0220/c1002-31596696.html
I have it on good authority from multiple sources with knowledge of the situation that China offered the US COVID test kits in early February, but the US never gave an affirmative response allowing them past the FDA screening process 28/
I also have it on good authority that Matt Pottinger, as the resident *national security* expert on the WH COVID Task Force, weighed in first on the Chinese and WHO offers 29/
The way Matt turned down both China and the WHO’s offers was by letting FDA and CDC restrictions on testing continue as an excuse. Tragically, this also led to *all* non-CDC tests being banned in the US until late February, at which point it was too late 30/
What makes this error especially egregious was that Matt knew of at least one 100% American path to a viable test that was being blocked by his mokusatsu of the Chinese offer 31/
Helen Chu, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Washington, could have tested for US community spread of COVID as early as late January. She was barred from doing so by US officials until she went ahead and did it anyways on Feb 25 32/
When her test results came back positive – confirming community spread – the US immediately scrambled to allow commercial labs to begin testing, bypassing the normal FDA certification process 33/
Matt Pottinger had to have known that Helen Chu could have been able to test. Why? Matt’s brother knew Helen, and Matt was using his brother as outside counsel throughout the entire pandemic 34/
Paul and Helen work in the same department in the University of Washington… 35/
…and Paul has even published multiple papers with her on **testing for and treating infectious viruses** 36/
It's ludicrous to think that Matt Pottinger - who called his brother Paul at the first sign of trouble - would not have heard about this option to resolve America's testing issues 37/
So why did Matt make these two mistakes? It’s because Matt’s primary focus was – and remains – winning a War of Narratives against China on COVID 38/
Matt’s logic was that a) banning travelers from China makes China look bad and avoids COVID, and b) not using China’s or the WHO’s tests denies China any points for helping with the US’s COVID situation 39/
Why do these 2 mistakes matter? Because the US had a war plan vs COVID that succeeded in both Germany and South Korea; the difference being neither made travel bans a policy focus nor did they use COVID testing to score geopolitical points 40/ https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-south-korea
If the US had gotten something close to Germany’s results, the US would have 140,000 deaths, not 360,000. If South Korea, less than **7,000**. 41/
So why is some national security bureaucrat able to dodge responsibility for mistakes that caused over 350,000 excess American deaths? Two reasons: first, Matt is what I call ‘stick-shift royalty’ 42/
He’s a 2nd or 3rd gen clearance holder who wears a faux mask of poverty while leaking secrets and spinning narratives on behalf of the American Empire 43/
Pottinger’s father knew Deep Throat as a senior lawyer for Nixon; while he grew up, his stepmother was the leading feminist of her generation and happened to be a CIA agent 44/
Months and even years before COVID appeared, he was receiving fawning media coverage 45/
One wonders how many favors Stan Pottinger called in with Bob Woodward and the rest of the DC journo crowd to run an 8-month media campaign – complete with a book – to pre-emptively exonerate his son 46/
But his old man’s connections are not enough for a coverup of this magnitude. The second reason Pottinger has controlled the narrative is that he took a lesson from how the Soviets handled Chernobyl 47/
From the middle of January onwards, all meetings of the US COVID Task Force have been classified Secret or Top Secret 48/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrecy-exclusive/exclusive-white-house-told-federal-health-agency-to-classify-coronavirus-deliberations-sources-idUSKBN20Y2LM
Who classified these meetings? 49/
And just in case you think this is normal or desirable – no, it’s not. Here’s a 30-year DoJ veteran telling us in a lawyerly fashion that this is bad and quite possibly illegal 50/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69237/the-legally-troubling-treatment-of-covid-19-meetings-as-classified/
Wait… illegal? Yes, because there needs to be a reason for classifying the meetings and it’s not obvious there is one. So what was the stated reason the meetings were classified? Answer: China 51/
But the China excuse can’t just refer to a travel ban – that was Feb 1. So what else? Could it possibly be the US blocking potentially lifesaving tests from China and the WHO? 52/
Or does it relate to Matt’s relentless, Rumsfeld-esque push to find evidence supporting a “lab leak” hypothesis of COVID’s origin? 53/
Either way, classifying everything makes Matt's job of spin trivially easy by giving him veto power over all the source material. Far from being a 'master of spin', he's like a tennis player who breaks the arms of all his opponents before they step onto the court 54/
Now, shifting gears, in addition to censorship, after Matt realized that COVID was going to blow up, he immediately shifted tack to pushing as much of the blame onto China as possible. From March 2020: 55/
Indeed, if you google “Pottinger” and “Wuhan”, you’ll find numerous articles citing him as the progenitor of the hypothesis that the virus leaked out of a virology research lab in Wuhan - and he's still pushing these stories, even into the new year 56/
And I have it on good authority that he’s been ‘providing guidance’ to at least one journalistic team in their investigative reporting on COVID’s origins in China 57/ https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandemic-china-only-on-ap-bats-24fbadc58cee3a40bca2ddf7a14d2955
Why is Pottinger pushing this theory in the US, UK, India, etc? Because in his head, regardless of whether it’s true or not, it cements hostility between China and the Anglosphere, and that’s something he’s very proud of 58/
Indeed, he’s bragged to people around him that the “war of narratives” his team has been driving on COVID has contributed to the “greatest decline in Chinese international perceptions in history” 59/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/
You know when this was last tried in history? Around the same time as the last great pandemic 60/
Matt is creating a narrative based on selective truths and blatant falsehoods that hits China and Chinese people everywhere with the 21st-century equivalent of blood libel, so that he can finally get the Cold War he’s been dreaming of 61/ https://twitter.com/historyned/status/1324718960634400770
Matt Pottinger has the blood of 200,000 to 350,000 (and counting) Americans on his hands, and he’s planning on adding hundreds of thousands more. Don’t let him. end/
You can find a podcast episode where @carlzha and I talk about Pottinger's role in COVID here: https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1345603715676340225
