Pandemic Playbook Faults

Posted on by

Several weeks ago, Politico published an article describing how President Trump failed to adhere to the 2016 Pandemic Playbook complete with the document itself. That is found here.

Here's the Pandemic Playbook That Trump Ignored

After it was brought to my attention, I read it thoroughly and began to break it down to determine the failures and faults. NBC News has picked up the same blame mission posted today.

The summary is noted below.

Pandemic Playbook Faults

It begins with Congress when in the funding process of 2015 to 2016 or even to 2017, appropriations were never allocated to specific pandemic outbreaks other than the normal funding architecture for what is known as ICBRNR. This includes the omission of the Strategic National Stockpile inventory that was not adequate for a national outbreak, yet is annexed by individual state stockpiles including medical facility inventories. FAULT 1

The World Health Organization is the lead global organization of which the United States is the largest financial contributor to provide recommendations from assessments that include epidemiology, humanitarian/development/ public health impact, transmission/outbreak/potential for public concern. WHO was willingly prevented from doing this by the Chinese Communist Party.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies expert, asked about an international business meeting held at a Singapore hotel on Jan 20-22, said it did not appear to have spread the virus widely.

“No, I think it is way too early and much more of an exaggeration to consider the Singapore conference event a ‘super-spreading event’,” Ryan said. ( Reuters: February 10, 2020)   FAULT 2

The WHO is to advise on travel, perform surveillance, infection control, tender medical cure(s) to the host country. After this advise and action by WHO, U.S. Health and Human Services then based on WHO assessments and recommendations, launches the National Emergency Action Center. WHO finally under pressure from the international community, admitted an error in its assessment of the Wuhan Laboratory on January 28, 2020. FAULT 3 (2 days later, President Trump restricted/halted flights from China into the United States).

Meanwhile, the United States through the U.S. State Department had several operations launched to address the potential global outbreak and that included running private flights to various locations around the globe to retrieve American citizens and bring them home. Further, earnest offers were being provided to Wuhan and Beijing by the USG to send in virologist and medical personnel to examine research protocols, gather lab samples, perform specimen sharing, collaborate on pharmaceuticals and treatments as well as to review global stockpiles, medical treatment infrastructure (read hospitals) and to offer proposed budget items to the U.S. Congress. Not only did were these offers extended to China, but to any other nation that was lacking in resources including Italy and Iran. FAULT 4 for China

Meanwhile as the Senate impeachment hearings began on January 16, 2020, the Trump administration launched the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, 2020. The first known case of COVID -19 was reported in Washington State on January 20, 2020 as a 35 year old man had just returned from Wuhan on January 15. It was not until March 11, 2020 that WHO declared COVID -19 a pandemic. FAULT 5

As for all the other U.S. Federal agencies, they take the lead from HHS which takes the lead from WHO. The number of Federal agencies is substantial and not only do they include the normal well known agencies, they also include the Veterans Administration, USAID, Office of Global Affairs, embassies, FBI, CIA, GOARN otherwise the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. There of course is the CDC with clinical trial research papers, various trial invitations, there is the Customs and Border Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard for cross border travel and sea travel, the FAA and the branches of the U.S. military. Orchestrate all that for the benefit of the state Governors who hold the most significant power and responsibility when outbreaks occur. It is the Federal government that only provides guidance and assistance as a multi-state event occurs.

This summary comes from reading the Politico article on how President Trump failed the Pandemic Playbook. That is hardly the case if one actually reads the whole playbook. After the 2016 playbook was authored and published in 2015 for 2016, did Congress standup a hearing to determine funding specific to a pandemic? The playbook recommended early budget and financial analysis and supplemental funding from Congress. Did that happen? NO Fault 6.

There is more but based on the items in the playbook, it was done by committee as a result of the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The playbook per the text is merely a checklist for domestic and international guidance.

Unmasking List is not Complete

Posted on by

Primer: Crossfire Razor = LTG Flynn investigation, launched July 2016, cleared January 2017 (calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak included the call in question which was December 29, 2016. There were clearly requests prior to Samantha Power, it is unclear yet by whom and those results. We are told there will be more releases.

Crossfire Typhoon = George Papadopoulos

Crossfire Hurricane full FBI investigation operation

* The list below is hardly a full list of unmasking requests during the late part of the Obama presidency. This report was released by Senator Grassley. For example, Susan Rice is not listed. The below documents are for a specific time-frame. Note the requests prior to the main phone call that has raised the ire of the Democrats. For additional reference, LTG Flynn had the official job as National Security Advisor to President Trump from January 23, 2017 to February 13, 2017.

Other designations listed below are as follows:

DOE in Briefer is the Department of Energy (nuclear weapons division)

COS can be both Chief of Staff or Chief of Station (CIA)

CMO is Collection Management Officer

DCOS is Deputy Chief of Station

CMO is Chief of Missions Officer (Reports Officer)

CIA/CTMC Counter Terrorism Military Coordinator

Image Image

Image

* Samantha Power: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, married to Cass Sunstein who was the Information and Regulatory Czar for President Obama.

* James Clapper: Former Director of National Intelligence, previously served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the same one that LTG Flynn was Director of at the time he was fired by the Obama administration.

* Kelly Degnan, previous Deputy Chief of Mission to Italy, San Marino and was nominated by President Trump to be Ambassador to Georgia and she speaks 5 languages.

* John R. Phillips, Former Ambassador to Italy and San Marino, and presently a lawyer at the whistleblower law firm of Phillips and Cohen. His wife is Linda Douglas and is head of communications for Bloomberg in WDC.

* John Brennan, Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, previously was the Assistant to Obama for Homeland Security. (He at CIA when he set up the system that spied on Senate staffers working for Senator Feinstein doing work on the torture report)

* Patrick Conlon, Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Treasury Department, formerly 19 years at CIA

* Jacob Lew, Secretary of Treasury until 2017.

* Arthur Danny McGlynn, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

* Mike Neufeld, Deputy Assistant Secretary U.S. Treasury

* Sarah Raskin, Lawyer, formerly on the Board of the Federal Reserve and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, married to Jamie Raskin of the 8th District of Maryland, U.S. House of Representatives.

* Nathan Sheets, Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs

* Adam Szubin, Under Secretary of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at U.S. Treasury

* Robert Bell, Civilian Representative of the Secretary of Defense in Europe and Advisor to U.S Ambassador to NATO.

* VDAM John Christenson, U.S. Military Representative to NATO Military Committee in Brussels.

* James Comey, Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

* LTC Paul Geehreng, Defense Policy Advisor to US Mission NATO, policy advisor on Russia.

* Douglas Lute, US Permanent Representative to NATO married to Jane Holl, currently serving as UN Special Envoy to Cyprus, former Deputy Secretary of Department of Homeland Security.

* James Hursh, Acting Secretary of Defense in Europe and Acting Defense Advisor to US Mission NATO.

* Scott Parrish, U.S. State Department, Political Officer, NATO.

* Elizabeth Sherwood Randall, US Deputy Secretary of Energy, previously White House Coordinator for Defense Policy, brother is President of ABC Disney Group and ABC News.

* Tamir Waser, NATO Operations Officer, London

* John F. Tefft, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, career Foreign Service Officer.

* Ambassador John R. Bass, Turkey, former Ambassador to Georgia. Former Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

* Denis McDonough, Former White House Chief of Staff for President Obama, former Senior Fellow at Center for America Progress.

* Michael Dempsey, Former Acting Director of National Intelligence for January to March of 2017, formerly with the CIA as a WINPAC Expert

* Stephanie O’Sullivan, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, former senior leader at CIA.

* Joseph Biden, Former Vice President for President Obama and attended the January 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting in question that included President Obama,  Susan Rice, Sally Yates and James Comey.

***

WHAT IS UNMASKING?

During routine, legal surveillance of foreign targets, names of Americans occasionally come up in conversations. Foreigners could be talking about a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident by name, or a foreigner could be speaking directly to an American. When an American’s name is swept up in surveillance of foreigners, it is called “incidental collection.” In these cases, the name of the American is masked before the intelligence is distributed to administration officials to avoid invading that person’s privacy.

Unless there is a clear intelligence value to knowing the American’s name, it is not revealed in the reports. The intelligence report would refer to the person only as “U.S. Person 1” or U.S. Person 2.” If U.S. officials with proper clearance to review the report want to know the identity, they can ask the agency that collected the information — perhaps the FBI, CIA or National Security Agency — to “unmask” the name.

WHEN WOULD AN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY UNMASK A NAME?

The request is not automatically granted. The person asking has to have a good reason. Typically, the reason is that not knowing the name makes it impossible to fully understand the intelligence provided.

The name is released only if the official requesting it has a need to know and the “identity is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance,” according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s latest report, which includes statistics on unmasking. “Additional approval by a designated NSA official is also required.”

Former NSA Director Mike Rogers has said that only 20 of his employees could approve an unmasking. The names are shared only with the specific official who asked. They are not released publicly. Leaking a name, or any classified information, is illegal.

HOW OFTEN ARE NAMES UNMASKED?

The number of unmasking requests began being released to the public in response to recommendations in 2014 from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

There were 9,217 unmasking requests in the 12-month period between September 2015 and August 2016, the first period in which numbers are publicly available. The period was during the latter years of the Obama administration.

The number rose during the Trump administration. The 9,529 requests in 2017 grew to 16,721 in 2018 and 10,012 last year. More here.

 

 

Judge Sullivan Has Now Put AG Barr on Trial by Inviting Amicus Briefs

Posted on by

There is no longer a prosecutor on the LTG Flynn case after the Department of Justice filed the motion to terminate the case against him. It was expected that Judge Emmet Sullivan would approve the DoJ motion yet the Judge went sideways and has now asked for Amicus Curiae briefs. Exactly who receives the invitation to file those briefs is to be scrutinized.

Judge Sullivan's accusations mar Flynn's sentencing hearing ... photo

This decision by Judge Sullivan is so legally contentious that an 11 page motion to leave the the amicus brief was immediately placed into the pipeline.

Judge Sullivan’s invitation was extended to a group known as former Watergate prosecutors. These lawyers were aiding the House Impeachment Team asserting that Donald Trump

● Trump conditioned protection of the military security of the United States and of an ally (Ukraine) on actions for his personal political benefit.

● Trump subordinated the integrity of our national electoral process to his own personal political interest by soliciting and encouraging foreign government interference in our electoral process, including by Russia and China. He also appears to have demanded that Ukraine investigate a potential 2020 political opponent and pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 presidential election, despite the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that it was Russia that had interfered.

● According to the evidence laid out in the Mueller report, Trump engaged in multiple acts of obstruction of justice in violation of federal criminal statutes and of his oath of office to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Because Mueller viewed Justice Department policy as precluding him from filing criminal charges against the president, the special counsel appropriately stated that these abuses are for Congress to address.

Additionally, there is yet another group that signed a letter condemning AG Barr’s motion regarding the Flynn case. This particular group was mobilized by an organization called Protect Democracy. The group was founded and is led by Ian Bassin who served as an Associate White House Counsel from 2009-2011, meaning the Obama White House. Bassin also says that the MAGA hats broke the Hatch Act law. So, this is not about a legal challenge but it is for sure political. Protect Democracy is still soliciting signatures through May 25. The Co-Founder and legal advisor is Justin Florence who most recently served as counsel in Ropes & Gray’s business & securities litigation practice group, where his practice focused on appellate and Supreme Court matters. He has represented clients in the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals, as well as at the trial level. He has previously served in the Office of the White House Counsel as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President. Justin also worked for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse as Senior Counsel on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The letter in part reads:

It is now up to the district court to consider the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn indictment. We urge Judge Sullivan to closely examine the Department’s stated rationale for dismissing the charges — including holding an evidentiary hearing with witnesses — and to deny the motion and proceed with sentencing if appropriate. While it is rare for a court to deny the Department’s request to dismiss an indictment, if ever there were a case where the public interest counseled the court to take a long, hard look at the government’s explanation and the evidence, it is this one. Attorney General Barr’s repeated actions to use the Department as a tool to further President Trump’s personal and political interests have undermined any claim to the deference that courts usually apply to the Department’s decisions about whether or not to prosecute a case.

Finally, in our previous statement, we called on Attorney General Barr to resign, although we recognized then that there was little chance that he would do so. We continue to believe that it would be best for the integrity of the Justice Department and for our democracy for Attorney General Barr to step aside. In the meantime, we call on Congress to hold the Attorney General accountable. In the midst of the greatest public health crisis our nation has faced in over a century, we would all prefer it if Congress could focus on the health and prosperity of Americans, not threats to the health of our democracy. Yet Attorney General Barr has left Congress with no choice. Attorney General Barr was previously set to give testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on March 31, but the hearing was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge the Committee to reschedule Attorney General Barr’s testimony as soon as safely possible and demand that he answer for his abuses of power. We also call upon Congress to formally censure Attorney General Barr for his repeated assaults on the rule of law in doing the President’s personal bidding rather than acting in the public interest. Our democracy depends on a Department of Justice that acts as an independent arbiter of equal justice, not as an arm of the president’s political apparatus.

You can read the letter and see the signatures by clicking this link.

Trump Halts Federal Retirement Accounts Investing in China

Posted on by

In February of 2020, this site published an article describing the California Public Pension Fund’s investment in Chinese stocks could lead to national security risks and even spying. The value of the fund is $3.1 Billion. Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi refuses to approve House committee hearings on anything related to China….

The Chinese Communist Party has both different accounting rules for corporations reporting financial data and or refuses to release any accounting data. How and why Chinese companies are listed on U.S. Stock Exchanges in the first place is an unanswered question and one that is likely being reviewed now by the Securities and Exchange Commission along with several other agencies due to a very contested relationship between the U.S. and China due to the virus outbreak.

Please find linked a complete list of all Chinese companies listed on the NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, and NYSE American, the three largest U.S. exchanges. As of February 25, 2019, there were 156 Chinese companies listed on these U.S. exchanges with a total market capitalization of $1.2 trillion.

An asterisk next to the stock symbol indicates a company with at least 30 percent state ownership. As of February 25, 2019, there were at least 11 Chinese state-owned companies listed on the three major U.S. exchanges.

A highlighted row indicates a company that was not included on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) September 2018 review of non-U.S. companies where the PCAOB is denied access to conduct inspections.

So as an interesting measure to begin measures against China, President Trump issued a letter to the Labor Secretary to halt investments in Federal Savings Plans in Chinese equities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second letter was sent by the Secretary of Labor to the Thrift Investment Board and that is found here.

Rather than the normal contested and really stupid questions that the media asks during White House daily briefings, there are some real questions that should be asked and they include all things China.

For some context on how China is all over the United States, consider the information below.

For many Chinese companies, their dreams of listing in New York are only on hold.

Some high-profile Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. such as Luckin Coffee, the self-proclaimed Starbucks rival in China, have been rocked following allegations by short-sellers that these companies faked their numbers, accusations that in some cases are now being internally investigated.

The reports are the latest challenge for Chinese initial public offerings in New York, on top of U.S.-China trade tensions and the impact of the coronavirus.

But some in the cross-border IPO business say the listing plans are just delayed, not canceled.

“I do know Chinese companies that are planning to list this summer as soon as after Labor Day,” said Jim Fields, a Shenzhen-based producer of videos for Chinese companies presenting to potential IPO investors in the U.S. China celebrates the holiday on May 1.

Fields noted the new IPO timeframe is a delay of about one to three months.

Last year, 25 Chinese issuers went public in the U.S., in addition to three special-purpose acquisition companies — companies that raise money to buy another — according to Renaissance Capital, which sells IPO-focused exchange-traded funds. That’s down from 32 Chinese listings in 2018, which was double that of the prior year and the most since 2010.

Despite geopolitical and epidemiological challenges in the first three months of this year, seven Chinese companies and three special-purpose acquisition companies went public in the U.S., according to Matthew Kennedy, IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital.

“We suspect several more had planned to list, but delayed their offerings amid the Covid-19 outbreak,” Kennedy said in an email. “As we noted in our 1Q20 Review, China appears to be the first country emerging from the pandemic, so Chinese companies may also be first to return to the IPO market. However, these financial scandals do reputational damage to Chinese issuers broadly.”

On April 2, Luckin Coffee announced an internal investigation found the chief operating officer fabricated sales by about 2.2 billion yuan ($314 million) from the second to fourth quarter of last year. Shares have plunged more than 80% since the latest disclosure this month, and have been halted for pending news for roughly the last week.

About two months ago, investment firm Muddy Waters said it was shorting, or betting on a decline in the price of the stock, based on an anonymous report that alleged the coffee company fabricated financial and operating numbers beginning in the third quarter of last year. Luckin said at the time the allegations were “misleading and false.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives from Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange were not available for interviews for this story.

Other high-profile U.S.-listed stocks have come under scrutiny in the last several days.

Shares of video streaming site iQiyi, which is majority-owned by search giant Baidu, dipped last week after a report by Wolfpack Research alleged the video company inflated revenue by about $1 billion to $2 billion. Muddy Waters said it assisted Wolfpack with the report and is also betting against iQiyi’s stock. The Chinese company said in a statement it believed the report contained “errors” and was “misleading.”

China's hottest companies - Tal Education (8) - CNNMoney

Tutoring company TAL Education announced last week it suspected an employee of inflating sales for its “Light Class” product, which accounts for about 3% or 4% of the company’s total estimated revenues. TAL said the employee has been taken into custody by the local police. More here.

Grenell is on a Mission to Expose the Unmaksing Scandal

Posted on by

Primer: (Hint, Flynn was not a target to be unmasked, but remember the name Mary McCord and the unmasking list will be fascinating)
Back in 2017 to set up what is about to happen in coming days –>

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is accusing top political aides of President Obama of making hundreds of requests during the 2016 presidential race to unmask the names of Americans in intelligence reports, including Trump transition officials.

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, said the requests were made without specific justifications on why the information was needed.

“We have found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information,” Nunes wrote in the letter to Coats.

The letter was provided to The Hill from a source in the intelligence community.

In March, Nunes disclosed that he had seen data suggesting Trump campaign and transition officials were having their names unmasked by departing officials in the Obama White House.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice and CIA Director John Brennan have acknowledged making such requests though they insisted the requests were for legitimate work reasons.

Nunes recused himself from his committee’s work on its investigation over Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign after a controversy over his charges about Obama-era unmasking.

The chairman had reviewed intelligence reports on White House grounds that he said showed unmasking of Trump officials by Obama aides. Democrats accused him of working with the White House to make the disclosures.

In Thursday’s letter, Nunes said the total requests for Americans’ names by Obama political aides numbered in the hundreds during Obama’s last year in office and often lacked a specific intelligence community justification. He called the lack of proper justifications a “serious deficiency.”

His letter noted requests from senior government officials, unlike career intelligence analysts, “made remarkably few individualized justifications for access” to the U.S. names.

“The committee has learned that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration,” Nunes wrote. “Of those requests, only one offered a justification that was not boilerplate.”

Sources familiar with the Nunes letter identified the official as then-U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power.

Power did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nunes also wrote that “Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports.”

Nunes said he intends to introduce legislation to address concerns about the unmasking process impacting Americans’ privacy.

Ordinarily, Americans whose email or phone data or conversations are intercepted by the National Security Agency without a warrant overseas are legally required to have their names redacted or masked with descriptions like “U.S. person 1” to protect their identities in intelligence reports.

But beginning in 2011, Obama loosened the rules to make it easier for intelligence officials and his own political aides to request that the names be unmasked so they could better understand raw intelligence being gathered overseas.

The change has been criticized by liberal groups like the ACLU and conservatives like Nunes because of the privacy implications.

***  Mission Possible – DNI Richard Grenell Delivers Satchel of ...

Media late last week showed Ambassador Ric Grenell and Acting DNI Director walking into the Department of Justice holding a satchel. Now we may know the contents.

In part from ABC News:

Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has declassified a list of former Obama administration officials who were allegedly involved in the so-called “unmasking” of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his conversations with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, a senior U.S. official tells ABC News.

Grenell, who remains the U.S. ambassador to Germany along with being the acting DNI, visited the Justice Department last week and brought the list with him, according to the official.

His visit indicates his focus on an issue previously highlighted in 2017 by skeptics of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, specifically allegations that former officials improperly unveiled Flynn’s identity from intercepts of his call with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In May 2019, Trump empowered Barr with declassification authority for his broader investigation into the Russia probe.

While the law requires that identifying information of U.S. persons picked up during foreign surveillance be “masked,” high-ranking intelligence officials can request the identities be revealed if they feel the information is necessary to further understand the intercepts.

Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice has openly acknowledged unmasking the identities of some senior Trump officials during the presidential transition but has strenuously denied ever leaking any identities and said nothing she did was politically motivated. More here.