Question: Did @realdonaldtrump consult or discuss the #coronavirus threat with Vladimir Putin during the critical months of Dec, Jan & early Feb when reports from intel and public health officials started rolling in?
The firing of Michael Atkinson, the IG for the intel community, who validated the whistleblower complaint that kicked off impeachment got me thinking. At first, it looks like a standard mobster 'settle all family business/time to pay for Santino' move.
However, knowing @realdonaldTrump as I've come to know him, it's likely more about his paranoia of getting caught and thinking ahead to prevent it. What's he afraid of getting caught about? His response to the #coronavirus.
Up until this point, we've never made a connection between @realdonaldtrump's criminally neglectful response to the #coronavirus and the #trumprussia saga, but as @SpeakerPelosi says, ''all roads lead to Putin".
So if Trump did speak to Putin about the #coronavirus threat, is it plausible that Vlad told Trump it was a 'deep state hoax' intended to distract him from being focused on impeachment, or that it may be used against him to remove him from power under the guise of impeachment?
If so, would Putin have advised Trump to downplay the #coronavirus threat in order to induce him to leave America less prepared to deal w/it? After all, Putin's goal is to destroy & weaken the western alliance & US. Such a scenario is entirely consistent with Putin's world view.
On top of that, is it plausible that @realdonaldtrump encouraged GOP officials from Senators to Govs (e.g., Kemp/DeSantis) to follow his lead? Did he share intel & also help direct them towards profiteering opportunities (e.g., Loeffler/Burr) while keeping the public in the dark?
If so, might it explain why, as the virus got a foothold in the US, the response of @GOP officials was to slow walk a response, come up with self-serving rationales to explain changes in position, hide that they knew of the threat in advance, and refuse to warn the public or act?
Additionally, while they were hiding the truth from the public, did these @GOP officials also aggressively make moves to profiteer off this crisis, from stock trades to rigging the procurement process to squeeze desperate states & other buyers of PPE/Vents at high markups?
Does anyone believe Gov Kemp when he said he learned about asymptomatic spread of #covid19 for the first time just days before issuing his order? Or, is it more likely that he did know, was warned, but did nothing in order to align w/the WH? Same for Trump bootlicker DeSantis?
Does @realdonaldTrump strike you as someone leading a nat'l response, or a guy who provides daily lip service to the threat, does some face saving moves here and there, but is essentially throwing others in front of the train (particularly Gov. Andrew Cuomo)? We know the answer.
It's imperative that we get more reporting on the essential questions of 'what did they know and when did they know it', and financial motives. More importantly, the imperative to remove Trump from office and/or do an end run around him to save lives have never been more urgent.
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