WHISTLEBLOWER EXPOSES TRUMP DENIAL OF QUICK MASK PRODUCTION

The Trump administration refused to accept an offer by a Texas company to manufacture N95 masks two days after the US confirmed its first two COVID-19 deaths on January 21, 2020, whistleblower Rick Bright confirmed in a Washington Post report on Saturday, May 9.

Bright detailed how the Department of Health and Human Services refused to take the offer of the Fort Worth, Texas-based Prestige Ameritech to use four of its idle production lines to manufacture at least 7 million masks a month, with Laura Wolf, director of the Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection at HHS, teling Prestige Ameritech’s Michael Bowen:

“I don’t believe we as a government are anywhere near answering those questions for you yet.” In response, as Julia Conley of Common Dreams wrote for Truthout on May 10, 2020, Bowen said: “We are the last major domestic mask company. My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad.”

Bright also criticized President Donald Trump’s promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 and clashed with another official who wanted to transfer $40 million from his office to the Strategic National Stockpile in 2018 to purchase a drug made by manufacturer Alvogen, the client of a lobbyist who had connections to the Trump administration.

A federal inquiry into Bright’s complaint found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” the administration unlawfully retaliated against Bright by demoting him.