House COVID panel accuses Trump administration of exacerbating the pandemic in its final report
The report from the Democratic-led subcommittee, chaired by Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), highlighted the Trump White House’s “failed stewardship over the pandemic response and persistent pattern of political interference.”
Clyburn also announced he will be holding a final hearing on Wednesday focused on the recommendations made by his panel.
The committee determined that the previous administration failed to adapt its response to the COVID-19 pandemic as public health experts’ understanding of the virus changed — and also failed to coordinate properly with public health officials.
In particular, the report stated that the Trump White House’s focus on certain goals got in the way of mitigating the spread of the virus, such as its emphasis on symptomatic transmission of the virus and bringing back Americans who were overseas at the start of the outbreak.
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Later on the pandemic, the committee found that the Trump administration’s economic relief efforts were not thorough or equitable, leaving millions of individuals at risk of losing housing and many small and midsized companies without the same measure of relief that was offered to large corporations.
“Just as its model, the Truman Committee, uncovered waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars at the Department of Defense during World War II, the Select Subcommittee has acted as an effective steward of public funds, identifying billions of taxpayer funds spent ineffectively, inefficiently, or inequitably within pandemic relief programs across the federal government,” Clyburn said in a statement.
“As this final report shows, in many instances, the Trump Administration’s poor management of relief programs left them particularly vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse,” he added.
As many people and businesses went without relief, the committee found that other entities were able to profit throughout the pandemic, pointing to two online telemedicine platforms that benefitted from misinformation popularly spread by right-wing extremists.