Despite Senator Susan Collins’ claim that President Trump “did a lot that was right in the beginning” of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, evidence continues to pile up that he ignored early warnings of the coming public health crisis and waited months to take action. A new report from ABC News has revealed that U.S. intelligence officials were sounding the alarm on the threat of coronavirus as far back as November. This comes after independent reporting has shown Trump ignored warnings from his own top advisors and “wasted months” when he could have taken lifesaving early action.

 

A November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence warned that coronavirus “could be a cataclysmic event” and advised a ramp up in containment and mitigation efforts. But despite early warnings, Trump waited until mid-March to declare a national emergency and begin to mobilize federal agencies in response to this public health crisis.

 

“Senator Collins’ defense of Trump’s botched response to this pandemic is reprehensible,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra. “Trump’s failure to take action put our communities at risk and Senator Collins’ choice to ignore this failure is yet another reminder that she isn’t putting Maine first.”

 

ABC News: Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources

 

By Josh Margolin and James Gordon Meek

April 8, 2020

 

Key Points:

 

  • As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.

 

  • Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.

 

  • The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.

 

  • "Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House.

 

  • From that warning in November, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House.

 

  • All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

 

  • "The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing," the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. "But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on."

 

  • For his part, President Donald Trump has alternated between taking credit for early action and claiming that the coronavirus was a surprise to him and everyone else. He has repeatedly touted his Jan. 31 decision to restrict air travel with China, but at the same time, he spent weeks telling the public and top administration officials that there was nothing for Americans to fear.

 

  • On Jan. 22, for instance, Trump made his first comments about the virus when asked in a CNBC interview, "Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?" The president responded, "No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine."

 

  • It was not until March 13 when Trump declared a national emergency and mobilized the vast resources of the federal government to help public-health agencies deal with the crisis that was poised to crash on to the homeland.

 

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