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USAID got a new and urgent mission at the direction of the White House’s NSC. The agency had been instructed to ship more than 200 ventilators to Russia. Furthermore, the delivery had to be prioritized over any of the agency’s other work.
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The directive came just days after a May 7 phone call between Trump and Putin. “USAID was given no discretion in any of this,” said one government official with knowledge of the directive. “It was deemed a priority to give vents to Russia.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-the-markets-decide-covid-19-fate">https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...
Over the following weeks officials at USAID scrambled to fulfill the mysterious order. Doing so pulled resources and staff hours away from the agency’s core humanitarian mission, and came at the expense of poorer countries with far more limited resources.
The urgent order disrupted USAID’s detailed plans to ship ventilators to dozens of other countries. Russia “seemed to be first in line” and “got prioritized ahead of a lot of other countries,” said the government official with knowledge of the demand.
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Both Democratic and Republican Senate members overseeing USAID’s spending reportedly objected to the ventilator shipment. As one aide put it, “It was inexplicable and a bad idea for the administration to do this as a favor to Putin, but USAID was forced to by the White House.”
Of all the aborted efforts to secure America’s supply chain of essential lifesaving supplies, no deal has blown up more spectacularly than the one to turn an aging camera film company, Eastman Kodak, into an American manufacturer of ingredients for low-cost generic drugs.
After a back-and-forth among officials from the Departments of State, Treasury, and HHS, the language was struck. One official said, “We are exceedingly careful because we don’t know what in the blazing [hell] DFC is. We find it inserted in the most bizarre places.”
![After a back-and-forth among officials from the Departments of State, Treasury, and HHS, the language was struck. One official said, “We are exceedingly careful because we don’t know what in the blazing [hell] DFC is. We find it inserted in the most bizarre places.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiJPMG7UwAEv3yc.jpg "After a back-and-forth among officials from the Departments of State, Treasury, and HHS, the language was struck. One official said, “We are exceedingly careful because we don’t know what in the blazing [hell] DFC is. We find it inserted in the most bizarre places.”")
Boehler’s first announcement under the order, on July 28, was a splashy press event announcing a letter of interest to grant a $765 million loan to Eastman Kodak in order for it to remake itself as a manufacturer of pharmaceutical ingredients and return drug making to US shores.
In fact, Eastman Kodak was so untested when it came to making drug ingredients that the company’s head of government relations wrote to a government health official in March saying that the company would need a “waiver from the FDA’s requirements” to ensure drug safety.
As the White House pandemic response spiraled into chaos, Boehler’s job apparently expanded to include running after Kushner with a dustpan to clean up messes.
Boehler has been “super frustrated [with the] absolute ineptitude of the federal response. He’s deeply troubled that it’s such a mess.”
In a statement, Boehler said, “I’m proud of the work that we did in the face of this crisis and the lives that were saved as a result.”
![Boehler has been “super frustrated [with the] absolute ineptitude of the federal response. He’s deeply troubled that it’s such a mess.”In a statement, Boehler said, “I’m proud of the work that we did in the face of this crisis and the lives that were saved as a result.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiJUs52U4AAkOgG.jpg "Boehler has been “super frustrated [with the] absolute ineptitude of the federal response. He’s deeply troubled that it’s such a mess.”In a statement, Boehler said, “I’m proud of the work that we did in the face of this crisis and the lives that were saved as a result.”")
In a statement, Boehler said, “I’m proud of the work that we did in the face of this crisis and the lives that were saved as a result.”
