Sen. Ron Johnson wants email from Susan Rice fully declassified, report says

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., asked the Trump administration to declassify the entire email that President Obama’s former national security Susan Rice sent herself just before her boss was about to leave office, a report said.
Politico reported Monday that it viewed Johnson’s letter, which requested that Rice’s entire email that touched on the January 5, 2017, meeting be released. He said the email summarized the meeting where Obama and his top officials discussed the Michael Flynn case. Flynn was President Trump’s first national security adviser.
Earlier this month, Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department dismissed the case against Flynn, who was seen as the key prosecution witness from Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign.
Trump has been trying to go on the offensive after a string of developments he says bolstered his claim that the Russian collusion investigation conducted was nothing more than a political witch hunt.
“This was all Obama; this was all Biden,” he told “Sunday Morning Futures” in an exclusive interview Sunday. “These people were corrupt. The whole thing was corrupt and we caught them.”
The White House meeting on Jan. 5, 2017 has been the source of speculation. The roster in attendance included Obama, Vice President Biden, Rice, then-FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-CIA Director John Brennan and then-Director of National Intelligence James Capper and they talked about the Flynn investigation.
Obama asked Yates and Comey to "stay behind," and said he had "learned of the information about Flynn" and his conversation with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador about sanctions, an exhibit in the DOJ's motion to dismiss the Flynn case said. Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”
Biden was recently asked about the meeting after the Trump administration released the Obama-era officials behind the Flynn's “unmasking.”  Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he was “aware that there was, that they’d asked for, an investigation. But that’s all I know about it."
Rice and other Obama officials have insisted that they did nothing wrong and "unmasking" is routine.
Johnson has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration and its role in the Flynn fallout. He recently told Fox News that he has long felt that there “has been a concerted effort to sabotage” the Trump White House.
Johnson wrote the letter to Barr and pointed out that that most of Rice's email was already declassified, but a portion remains a mystery.
“The significance of that meeting is becoming increasingly apparent as more and more information is declassified. For these reasons, it is essential that Congress and the American people understand what occurred during that January 5, 2017, meeting and how it was later characterized by administration officials. The declassification of Ambassador Rice’s email, in whole, will assist these efforts,” he wrote, according to the Politico report.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report

'Where is Christopher Wray?' GOP lawmakers say FBI director ignoring them -- and push ahead for key interviews

Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday night said FBI Director Christopher Wray "has declined to respond" to their May 4 letter seeking information and interviews with key FBI officials after the bombshell revelations in the Michael Flynn case -- prompting the lawmakers to take matters into their own hands.
"Because Director Wray has declined to respond to our request, we are forced to write to you directly," Jordan and Johnson wrote in an extraordinary letter to FBI agent Joe Pientka, who participated in the January 2017 White House interview that led to Flynn's prosecution.
Fox News previously determined that Pientka also was intimately involved in the probe of former Trump aide Carter Page, which the DOJ has since acknowledged was riddled with fundamental errors and premised on a discredited dossier that the bureau was told could be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Pientka was removed from the FBI's website after Fox News contacted the FBI about his extensive role in Crossfire Hurricane Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) matters -- a change first noticed by Twitter user Techno Fog -- but sources said Pientka remained in a senior role at the agency's San Francisco field office. The FBI told Fox News shortly before Pientka's removal from the website that reporting on his identity could endanger his life, even though he serves in a prominent senior role at the bureau.
Jordan and Johnson sent a similar letter on Monday to an attorney for Bill Priestap, the former assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division.
Explosive handwritten notes that surfaced earlier this month -- written by Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Fox News is told -- suggested that agents planned to interview Flynn at the White House on January 24, 2017 "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

From left, FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats arrive to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

In the alternative, Preistap's note suggested a possible goal was to get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act" when he spoke to Russia's then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
The Logan Act has never been successfully used in a criminal prosecution and has a questionable constitutional status; it was enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones, and was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
Priestap's memo conspicuously surfaced only this month, even though the Justice Department and FBI had been under an obligation to turn over all relevant, potentially exculpatory materials to Flynn's legal team since February 2018. (Attorney General Bill Barr had appointed U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen to review the DOJ's handling of the Flynn case, and Jensen apparently unearthed the documents.)

Meanwhile, top DOJ prosecutor who had repeatedly told the court that the FBI had complied with the order, Brandon Van Grack, was abruptly pulled from the case after Fox News pointed out his apparent misrepresentations.
"Where is Christopher Wray?" Jordan tweeted Monday night.

"Where is Christopher Wray?"
— Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio

Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Pientka and anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok in that White House interview, as his mounting legal bills forced him to sell his home -- and prosecutors floated bringing Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) charges for his unrelated work in Turkey. Flynn is now seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, and the DOJ has agreed that the case should be dismissed, citing the new exculpatory evidence. D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, however, has indicated he may not dismiss the case without hearing more argument from third parties.
During the White House interview, Flynn told the agents "not really" when asked if he had sought to convince Kislyak not to escalate a brewing fight with the U.S. over sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, according to a contested FD-302 witness report prepared by the FBI weeks after the interview. Flynn also reportedly demurred when asked if he had asked Russia to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution that condemned Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.
Flynn issued other apparently equivocal responses to FBI agents' questions, and at various points suggested that such conversations might have happened or that he could not recall them if they did, according to the 302. But questions remained as to the strength of the FBI's case. Then-FBI Director James Comey admitted in 2018 that the Flynn interview at the White House didn't follow protocol, and came at his direction. He said it was not "something I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more... organized administration."
And, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe later said the interview was "very odd" because "it seemed like [Flynn] was telling the truth" to the two agents who interviewed him. Flynn, the interviewing agents told McCabe, "had a very good recollection of events, which he related chronologically and lucidly," did not appear to be "nervous or sweating," and did not look "side to side" -- all of which would have been "behavioral signs of deception."
Further, the FBI 302 indicated that Flynn apparently was aware his communications had been monitored, and at several points he thanks the FBI agents for reminding him of some of his conversations with Russian officials. A Washington Post article published one day before Flynn's White House interview with the agents, citing FBI sources, publicly revealed that the FBI had wiretapped Flynn's calls with Kislyak and cleared him of any criminal conduct. It was unclear who leaked that information to the Post -- or why the FBI would need to question Flynn about his contacts given that the bureau had already recorded them.

FILE - In this June 7, 2017, file photo, then-FBI acting director Andrew McCabe listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Wray, earlier this year, suggested in testimony that several agents could be under internal investigation by the FBI.
“As for current employees, there are what I would call more line-level employees who were involved in some of the events in the report, all of those employees … were referred to our Office of Professional Responsibility, which is our disciplinary arm," Wray said. He did not elaborate.
There was also action on the Senate side ono Monday. After weeks of bombshell revelations highlighting apparent FBI misconduct in the cases of Page and Flynn, the Republican-controlled Senate on Monday took two major steps toward launching its own comprehensive probe into the matter -- even as the Justice Department's separate criminal investigation, led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, continues.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., specifically announced Monday that his panel will soon vote on a subpoena authorization related to the FBI's apparent surveillance abuses. In a contentious interview, Graham recently told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that Republicans would conduct a proper investigation, but he was wary of interfering with the DOJ's "ongoing criminal matter," referring to Durham's review.
Graham's office announced in a statement that his subpoena authorization "covers a number of documents, communications and testimony from witnesses, including [former FBI Director] James Comey, [former FBI Deputy Director] Andrew McCabe, [former Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper, [former CIA Director] John Brennan, [former Deputy Attorney General] Sally Yates and others."
A total of 53 other names were on the list of potential subpoena recipients, including: "Trisha Anderson, Brian Auten, James Baker, William Barr, Dana Boente, Jennifer Boone, Kevin Clinesmith [the FBI lawyer who allegedly falsified a CIA email to secure the Carter Page FISA warrant], Patrick Conlon, Michael Dempsey, Stuart Evans, Tashina Gauhar [a top DOJ deputy when classified details of Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador were illegally leaked to The Washington Post], Carl Ghattas, Curtis Heide, Kathleen Kavalec, David Laufman [who arranged a key meeting with a Steele dossier source], Stephen Laycock, Jacob Lew, Loretta Lynch, Mary McCord, Denis McDonough, Arthur McGlynn, Jonathan Moffa, Sally Moyer, Mike Neufield, Sean Newell, Victoria Nuland, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Stephanie L. O’Sullivan, Lisa Page, Joseph Pientka [who interviewed Flynn at the White House while also playing a key role in the Carter Page probe, and whom the FBI has hidden from scrutiny], John Podesta, Samantha Power, E.W. “Bill” Priestap [who authored the memo debating whether the bureau simply wanted Flynn "fired"], Sarah Raskin, Steve Ricchetti, Susan Rice, Rod Rosenstein, Gabriel Sanz-Rexach, Nathan Sheets, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Glenn Simpson, Steve Somma [an FBI case agent who apparently was involved in several key FISA omissions], Peter Strzok, Michael Sussman, Adam Szubin, Jonathan Winer, and Christopher Wray."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has announced a sweeping new Russia probe may be imminent. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Also Monday, Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., requested that the Justice Department turn over an unredacted copy of the email that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice sent to herself on Inauguration Day -- a document that could shed light on the secretive January 5, 2017 White House meeting in which then-President Obama shocked a top DOJ official with his knowledge of the FBI's Flynn probe.
"I understand your office is currently reviewing a January 20, 2017, email from former National Security Adviser Susan Rice," Johnson wrote to Attorney General Bill Barr. "In that email, Ambassador Rice summarized an Oval Office meeting with President Obama and other administration officials that occurred on January 5, 2017."
Johnson continued: "A majority of Ambassador Rice's email was declassified but a portion of the email remains classified. The significance of that meeting is becoming increasingly apparent as more and more information is declassified. For these reasons, it is essential that Congress and the American people understand what occurred during that January 5, 2017, meeting and how it was later characterized by administration officials. The declassification of Ambassador Rice's email, in whole, will assist these efforts."
Obama was aware of the details of Flynn's intercepted December 2016 phone calls with Russia's then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising Sally Yates in the Oval Office meeting, according to documents released this month as exhibits to the government's motion to dismiss the Flynn case.
Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was "not a fan," according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014; Obama cited insubordination, while Flynn asserted he was pushed out for his aggressive stance on combating Islamic extremism.
On January 5, 2017, Yates attended an Oval Office meeting with Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, Brennan and Clapper, according to the newly declassified documents, including an FD-302 FBI witness report. They were discussing Russian election interference, along with Rice and other members of the national security council.
After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to "stay behind," and said he had "learned of the information about Flynn" and his conversation with Russia's ambassador about sanctions. Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information."
A previous memo from Rice stated that Biden also stayed behind after the main briefing had ended.
At that point, the documents showed, "Yates had no idea what the president was talking about, but figured it out based on the conversation. Yates recalled Comey mentioning the Logan Act, but can't recall if he specified there was an 'investigation.' Comey did not talk about prosecution in the meeting."
The exhibit continued: "It was not clear to Yates from where the President first received the information. Yates did not recall Comey's response to the President's question about how to treat Flynn. She was so surprised by the information she was hearing that she was having a hard time processing it and listening to the conversation at the same time."

California opens up coronavirus funding for immigrants in state illegally, faces backlash

Undocumented immigrants in California are now allowed to apply for the state’s coronavirus relief program that will pay $500 per person and up to $1,000 per household, according to reports Monday.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Sacramento has freed up $75 million for the fund, which could help about 150,000 who may be facing severe hardships during the pandemic. An earlier report in the paper said the Center for American Liberty is suing the state, claiming that the money is “not a slush fund for the governor to spend as he sees fit.” It hopes to block the package.
Opponents of the measure insist that any taxpayer funds should be directed to U.S. citizens who are also struggling amid the pandemic.
The LA Daily News reported that the state is home to about 2 million undocumented immigrants who are not eligible to receive any kind of federal stimulus. The report said the fund could hit $125 million,  which would include $50 million from donations. The money is expected to run out quickly.
The state website opened on Monday and there was so much traffic that the site crashed, the Fresno Bee reported.
“The website is currently up and running, and we are continuing to increase its capacity,” Scott Murray, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Social Services, told the Bee.
Kim Ouillette, attorney and fellow with Legal Aid at Work, told the paper that the state should “step in and do something more significant” because the funds will only cover a percentage of the immigrants in the state illegally. Applications will be accepted until June 30 or until funds run dry.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in April that he would spend $75 million of taxpayer money to create a Disaster Relief Fund for immigrants living in the country illegally.
He was criticized by some Republicans in the state. Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove said at the time that Newsom should spend the money instead on food banks, equipment for students to continue their education online and local governments struggling with revenue losses.
“Instead of meeting these urgent needs, Governor Newsom has chosen to irresponsibly pursue a left-wing path and unilaterally secured $125 million for undocumented immigrants,” said Grove, who represents Bakersfield.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Trump threatens to keep WHO funding freeze in place after WH investigation

President Trump released a blistering letter late Monday to the head of the World Health Organization, stating that his administration conducted an investigation that confirmed the health body’s multiple failures in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, and warned that his current funding freeze will become permanent if the organization does not make “substantive” improvements within 30 days.
“It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world,” he wrote in the letter to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.”
The White House has insisted that Beijing downplayed the virus' threat in December, which led to the subsequent outbreak. China has denied the charge.
Trump announced in April that the U.S. would halt funding to the organization. He said at the time that his administration would undertake a 60-to-90 day investigation into why the "China-centric" WHO had caused "so much death" by "severely mismanaging and covering up" the coronavirus' spread, including by making the "disastrous" decision to oppose travel restrictions on China.
The U.S. was the WHO's largest single donor. Trump said the United States contributes roughly $400 to $500 million per year to WHO, while China offers only about $40 million.
The letter offers a bullet-point list of shortcomings at the agency that Trump claimed could have been prevented under the right leadership.
The WHO “consistently ignored credible reports of the virus” in December 2019. By the end of that month, it was clear at the organization that the virus was a “major health concern.” Taiwanese authorities told health officials at the organization about human-to-human transmission, but that revelation was not shared with the international community.
Trump’s letter stated that International Health Regulations require countries to report the “risk of a health emergency within 24 hours.”
The letter laid the blame squarely on China and the WHO for weeks of non-action. The health body even accused U.S. travel restrictions to the country in late February of causing “more harm than good.”
“By the time you finally declared the virus a pandemic on March 11, 2020, it had killed more than 4,000 people and infected more than 100,000 people in at least 114 countries,” the letter read.
Trump's letter comes as Democrats criticize the White House for not taking the virus seriously from the outset.
Dr. Rick Bright, a whistleblower who ran the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, blamed the Trump administration for its own slow response to the pandemic and said the administration was instead worried about politics instead of science.
Trump has dismissed Bright's charges and has indicated that he is a disgruntled employee with a political bent.
The WHO bowed to calls Monday from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 300,000 people and leveled the global economy.
Fox News' Gregg Re and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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CNN's Kaitlan Collins spars with Trump after video shows her removing mask in WH briefing room

Hypocrite

CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins sparred with President Trump on Sunday for the second time in a week, this time on Twitter, after the president called her a “CNN Faker” over video showing her removing her mask while inside the White House briefing room.
Trump had retweeted his son Eric, who wrote: “Just a reminder that @CNN is a total joke.”
Collins responded: “Nearly 90,000 Americans have been killed by coronavirus, and the president is tweeting about me pulling my mask down for six seconds on Friday.”
The video showed Collins taking off her mask in the briefing room and not following social-distancing guidelines of staying at least six feet away from others.
Collins previously questioned why Trump administration officials weren’t wearing masks during the global pandemic.
Trump also got into a dustup with Collins at a Rose Garden news conference last week. She had approached the microphone after he apparently called on her, but he tried to move on to another reporter since Collins "didn't respond."
However, after Collins attempted to "let my colleague finish" and not step away from the microphone, Trump thanked the crowd and quickly walked away from the podium.
The coronavirus has infected over 4.7 million people and killed over 315,000 worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that experts said undercounted the true toll of the pandemic.
The U.S. has reported over 89,000 dead and Europe has seen at least 160,000 deaths.

AOC allegedly on hook for unpaid seven-year-old tax bill: report

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to raise taxes on the rich — just not pay her own.
The Democratic socialist congresswoman from The Bronx still hasn’t paid a 7-year-old tax bill leftover from a failed business venture.
AOC had founded Brook Avenue Press, a publishing house that sought designers, artists and writers from urban areas to help paint The Bronx in a positive way in children’s stories, in 2012.
As the Post previously reported, public records show the state dissolved the company in October 2016. The state can make such a move when a business fails to pay corporate taxes or file a return.
The state Tax Department then filed a warrant against her now-defunct business on July 6, 2017, over a $1,618.36 unpaid bill.
As of Friday, the tax warrant had still not been satisfied, and the outstanding balance had grown to $2,088.78, the department said.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens to questioning of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, at the House Oversight and Reform Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“She just thinks she’s better than everyone else. Clearly, she’s worse,” said Hank Sheinkopf, spokesman for AOC’s chief June primary-race opponent, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, to The Post.
But Ocasio-Cortez’s camp says the rep is challenging the $2,088.78 bill because it was issued “in error."

“The congresswoman is still in the process of contesting the tax warrant. The business has been closed for several years now, and so we believe that the state Tax Department has continued to collect the franchise tax in error,” said Lauren Hitt, an AOC spokeswoman.

“As anyone who’s tried to contest a tax bill in error knows, it takes time,” Hitt added.
AOC, a first-term incumbent, will face Democratic voters in the June 23 primary in the 14th Congressional District covering portions of The Bronx and Queens.
She shocked the political world when she toppled Ex-Congressman and former Queens Democratic Party Chairman Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary.
In one of her first moves as a congresswoman in 2019, AOC said taxes on the country’s wealthiest should be increased to as much as 70 percent.
Meanwhile, the financial statement of Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor, has yet to be publicly posted. Her campaign spokesman said it was filed Friday – the May 15 deadline.

Pat Sajak sides with out-of-work Americans, questions media telling those out-of-work to stay home

Longtime "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak questioned how talk show hosts and members of the media-- working remotely-- are telling those in financial trouble to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic, saying on Sunday, "it’s okay to question the premise."
"When a disc jockey or a talk show host or a journalist who is being paid to work from his or her home tells people who can’t work, pay bills or pay their rent or mortgage to 'Stay home and be careful because we’re all in this together,' it’s okay to question the premise," he wrote on Twitter.
His tweet comes as protests have broken out across the country urging state governments to reopen their economies with millions of Americans are currently out of work.
Those demonstrators, frustrated by certain stay-at-home orders, have swept many state capitals, including Ohio, North Carolina and Michigan. Other protests have broken out in New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington D.C.
On Sunday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned on CBS's "60 Minutes" that the nation's unemployment rate could soar to 25 percent during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 36 million people in the U.S. have lost their jobs due to the virus.

Powell said that people hurt most from the coronavirus are those from lower-income households, adding they are likely in a position where they can least afford being out of work.

"We're actually releasing a report tomorrow that shows that, of the people who were working in February who were making less than $40,000 per year, almost 40 percent have lost their jobs in the last month or so. Extraordinary statistic," he said. "So that's who's really bearing the brunt of this."
Even with protests sweeping the country, Powell believes that opening the economy won't have a great impact unless people are confident to go out, which likely won't happen until a vaccine is developed.
It's also important to have enough testing when states reopen to prevent a second wave. Opening businesses too early could cause the economy to be impacted for even longer and lead to more deaths due to the virus.
"I would say though we're not going to get back to where we were quickly. We won't get back to where we were by the end of the year. That's unlikely to happen," the U.S. central bank chief said. "For the economy to fully recover, people will have to be fully confident. And that may have to await the arrival of a vaccine."
Popular game shows like, “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” are currently taping without studio audiences in response to the ongoing virus outbreak. Both shows are filmed at a studio in Culver City, California.
As of Sunday night, the U.S. has more than 1,486,757 confirmed coronavirus cases, and at least 89,562 deaths from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Trump blasts ’60 Minutes,’ ‘creep’ HHS whistleblower after broadcast

President Trump late Sunday accused CBS’ “60 Minutes” of putting the spotlight on another “Fake Whistleblower” who wants to inflict damage on his administration's coronavirus response in order to benefit the "Radical Left Democrats."
Dr. Rick Bright, who has a Ph.D. in virology and ran the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, reiterated earlier claims that the government was slow to respond to the unfolding pandemic and said the administration was instead worried about politics instead of science. He blamed Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar of not heeding early warning about the virus.
Bright told the show that there was a Jan. 23 meeting where he was the only person in the room who said, "We're going to need vaccines and diagnostics and drugs. It's going to take a while and we need to get started."
Bright told Norah O’Donnell, the "60 Minutes" correspondent, that his resistance to Trump’s push of hydroxychloroquine was what ultimately cost him his position at the agency.
“I believe my last-ditch effort to protect Americans from that drug was the final straw that they used and believed was essential to push me out,” he said.
Bright told the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week that the nation could face “the darkest winter in modern history” if the virus rebounds.
"We don't yet have a national strategy to respond fully to this pandemic," he told O'Donnell. "The best scientists that we have in our government who are working really hard to try to figure this out aren't getting that clear, cohesive leadership, strategic plan message yet. Until they get that, it's still gonna be chaotic."
Trump was quick to lash out against the criticism. He said this “whole whistleblower racket” needs to be “looked at very closely” because it is “causing great injustice & harm.”
Trump has had famous run-ins with whistleblowers, including the one who made a complaint about Trump’s July 25, 2017, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which almost cost him his presidency, and another whistleblower behind an unfavorable book about his leadership called “A Warning.”
Trump has been quick to defend his administration over its COVID-19 response and said an early travel ban with China played a major role in limiting early disease transmission.
Trump said the famed program and O’Donnell “are doing everything in their power to demean our Country, much to the benefit of the Radical Left Democrats. Tonight they put on yet another Fake “Whistleblower”, a disgruntled employee who supports Dems, fabricates stories & spews lies.”
He called the “60 Minutes” report “incorrect, “which they couldn’t care less about. I don’t know this guy, never met him, but don’t like what I see. How can a creep like this show up to work tomorrow & report to @SecAzar, his boss, after trashing him on T.V.”
"60 Minutes" did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News for comment.
Bright was removed from his BARDA position in April and reassigned to a post at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but he has yet to show up at that post. HHS denied Bright’s claim that he was unfairly demoted, and blamed him of “politicizing the response” to the virus. HHS told “60 Minutes” that it was Bright who made the request for an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine.
“Bright was transferred from his role as BARDA director to lead a bold new $1 billion testing program at NIH, critical to saving lives and reopening America,” an HHS spokesperson said in a statement last week. “Mr. Bright has not yet shown up for work, but continues to collect his $285,010 salary, while using his taxpayer-funded medical leave to work with partisan attorneys who are politicizing the response to COVID-19.”
Bright's lawyers told CNN that he intends to report to that job next week.
"Contrary to administration talking points, Dr. Bright has never refused to report to NIH, and now that his position there has been identified, he plans to begin next week," the attorneys said. "Dr. Bright is fully prepared to step into this new role unless Secretary Azar honors OSC's request and grants a stay of his reassignment."
Azar hit back Thursday, slamming Bright's testimony as "yet another attack on President Trump" laden with "disproven, unfounded allegations."
"The president literally did what Bright is saying should be done," Azar told "The Story." "This guy was singing in a choir back then of everybody. We were all singing the same tune, and now he's trying to claim that he was a soloist."
Fox News' Yael Hanlon, Morgan Phillips and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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