Discrediting His Own Agencies

[Note to readers: This post was written two weeks ago before I went on vacation during which time I had no Internet access.  Clearly things of greater importance to our democracy (eg the President's threats to nullify the elections) have happened while I've been away, but now that I'm almost back I thought I'd share this anyway and get to the more recent issues as soon as I can.]

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump has sought to contradict or delegitimize medical opinion about various aspects of the virus. 

• As he has acknowledged in the Bob Woodward interview tapes, he has deliberately downplayed the danger of the pandemic from the very beginning.
• He has touted various unproven treatments (hydroxychloroquine, ingestion of bleach, ultraviolet light), several of which were bizarre from any point of view, none of which has been proven effective; he even pressured the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization (EUA) for hydroxychloroquine, which was later withdrawn because of safety considerations.
• He has refused to recommend strongly or even model mask-wearing or social distancing.
• He has been pushing to re-open schools and the general economy, even in parts of the country with high infection rates.
• He has removed the acknowledged expert on the coronavirus and its epidemiology Anthony Fauci from press briefings and blocked some of Fauci’s other media appearances.
  

Trump is now moving on from delegitimizing specific scientific conclusions to delegitimizing his own administration’s supposedly nonpolitical agencies. 

• In a joint appearance with FDA Commissioner Steven Hahn just before the Republican National Convention, Trump announced that the FDA was approving the use of convalescent plasma from recovering COVID-19 patients because it was a “powerful therapy” with an “incredible rate of success,” claiming that the treatment would save thirty-five out of one hundred COVID-19 patients from dying.  That statement turned out to demonstrate an extraordinary misunderstanding of scientific data.  The President’s statement and especially Commissioner Hahn’s strong defense of it were widely criticized by experts in the field.

This announcement came just after a statement by the President attacking the FDA, stating:

The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics …  Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd [the date of the presidential election].

• Still today he is publicly anticipating the November 1 approval of a coronavirus vaccine, which most experts consider highly unlikely.  Those experts are concerned that the President will exert pressure on the FDA for an early EUA even without adequate data.
• On August 26, the White House coronavirus task force abruptly changed previous government testing guidelines for asymptomatic people who have been exposed to the virus.  The new guidance    

replaces advice that everyone who has been in close contact with an infected person should get tested to find out whether they had contracted the virus. Instead, the guidance says those without symptoms “do not necessarily need a test.”

While there is some disagreement among medical experts about the technical soundness of the advice, most agree that the new guidelines are misleading and can be confusing.  Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, criticized 

the administration for releasing important recommendations under the CDC [Center for Disease Control and Prevention] name without allowing its officials to discuss them. She also said the White House intervened in the drafting of the CDC guidance about masks and reopening of churches and schools, so “that process has really poisoned people’s view of guidelines.”

• More recently Trump appointed neuro-radiologist Scott Atlas MD as a new medical advisor.  Atlas is neither an epidemiologist nor an infectious disease expert, but his radical, non-scientific views on the virus have been more closely aligned with the President’s “especially in regard to reopening schools, avoiding lockdowns, and resuming some sports.”
• And most recently, Paul Alexander, a political appointee advising the Department of Health and Human services (HHS), has sent repeated emails to the CDC seeking changes in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) and demanding that they be delayed until he could review and make edits.  In its various manifestations the MMWR has been published weekly on issues in public health since 1878.  Because of its up-to-date reporting on the most significant current issues, its rigorous scientific vetting and accuracy, and its interpretation of difficult data making it accessible to all, it has been one of the most important medical publications since at least … well, at least since I depended upon it repeatedly when I began medical practice in the 1970s.  Not surprisingly, the Trump Administration considers any accurate scientific information about the coronavirus epidemic to be potentially political and therefore must be “reviewed” by political appointees.  As an example, Alexander wrote to CDC Director Robert Redfield asking that the agency modify two already published reports that, Alexander claimed, mistakenly inflated the risks of coronavirus to children and undermined Trump’s push to reopen schools.  In another example, a report that hydroxychloroquine was not effective was delayed for several weeks as it was being “reviewed.”
  

The biggest problem here is not so much the confusion that the President is creating about specific issues; it is, rather, that Trump is undermining confidence in precisely those institutions that the country depends upon for objective information and advice untainted by political concerns.  Without those trustworthy sources, the government is free to spew propaganda without fear of objective refutation.  In this upside-down world, any politically inspired assertion has a claim on the truth equal to scientific fact or logical conclusion. 

The President is taking us to the point where there will be no source of information in the government that we can trust to tell the truth.  If the President is telling us that we can no longer trust the experts to tell us the truth about something objective as medical data, what will be the public reaction when we need leadership about something that is truly controversial?  For instance, especially given the growing fear of vaccinations (due in large part to irresponsible propaganda from the anti-vax movement), how many people will refuse to get the vaccine against the coronavirus when it is available?  The efficacy of the treatment of the pandemic will depend upon the trust we have in the institutions and experts who have studied the matter deeply and objectively.

The strength of our democracy depends upon our ability to work together and, ultimately, to trust one another.  Trust in others whom we don’t know, trust in institutions is incredibly fragile.  To the extent our leaders undermine that trust, they undermine our survival as a democracy.

The Hatch Act

The national media have recently reported on the violations of the Hatch Act by the Republican National Convention and by President Trump’s Administration itself.  The Hatch Act is a 1939 law that, in essence, prohibits federal executive branch employees¬ (except the president and vice-president from political activity while in their official capacity or (in the cases of certain top government officials) even when they were off-duty.  Government employees aren’t supposed to share their political opinions on the job.  From top Cabinet members on down to your average federal bureaucrat, they are to work for all Americans, not just for those from their party.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, spoke in a pre-recorded video from Israel to the Republican National Convention on behalf of the Trump election effort.  The official explanation was that Pompeo was speaking as a private citizen, not in his official capacity.  This is hard to sustain, however, since he was listed in the program as the Secretary of State and the video was taped while he was on an official, tax-payer sponsored trip visiting several countries in the mid-East.  Further, under the Hatch Act, diplomats face an added set of restrictions that prohibit them and their families from engaging in any partisan political activity while serving overseas, even in their personal capacities.

Pompeo spoke from the rooftop of a Jerusalem hotel using the overview of the city as backdrop.  Because the President stirred up a political controversy by moving the American embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, Pompeo’s speech could be seen as further blurring the line between his official capacity and his private political role.

It’s not that Pompeo was unclear about the law.  In fact, on Dec 3, 2019, he approved a memo reiterating a

long-standing policy of limiting participation in partisan campaigns by its political appointees in recognition of the need for the U.S. Government to speak with one voice on foreign policy matters. … The combination of Department policy and Hatch Act requirements effectively bars [members of the State Department] from engaging in partisan political activities while on duty, and, in many circumstances, even when [they] are off duty.

The Hatch Act also prohibits political activity within federally owned property.  During the Republican National Convention, however, this section of the law was ignored as Eric Trump, Melania Trump, daughters Ivanka and Tiffany Trump and others spoke from the White House or its grounds.  The President even participated in a taped naturalization ceremony in the White House presided over by Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, whose participation was also a violation of the law.  The President held a ceremony in the White House pardoning a previously convicted felon.  The President’s acceptance speech was given from the South Lawn of the White House.

While these breaches of the law at the Republican National Convention have been particularly brazen, they are hardly the first times this Administration has done so.  Presidential aide Kellyanne Conway repeatedly violated the Hatch Act in 2018 by disparaging Democratic candidates while in her official capacity as Trump spokesperson.  At that time, the US Office of Special Counsel recommended the President fire Conway for her illegal actions.  When confronted by reporters, Conway responded

Blah, blah, blah.  If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts.

When asked, Trump said that the law violated her constitutional right to free speech, ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court has previously upheld its constitutionality in several decisions.  Former administration officials have said the President sometimes jokes with aides that he will pardon them for any Hatch Act violations.  Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows dismissed concerns about the Hatch Act, saying that “nobody outside of the Beltway really cares” about ethics violations.

While Trump’s contempt for the Act has been noticed in the press, it has hardly become a major scandal.  The press and the public have become so inured to his disdain for the law and the Constitution that it is no longer important news.   

Most of the civil provisions of the Hatch Act are pursued through the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), and punishment for violation is, at the most, firing or suspension.  Given the president’s sensitivity to challenge and his willingness to interfere in the running of supposedly independent arms of the administration, it is perhaps not surprising that the OSC has taken so little notice of the violations.  

What is much less well known is that — while the president and the vice-president are exempt from the civil provisions of the original 1939 law — they are not exempt from its criminal provisions.  In 1993 Congress passed an amendment to the Hatch Act to provide “additional protections against political manipulation of the federal workforce.”  The current law makes it a felony with up to three years in prison for

any person to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, any employee of the Federal Government . . . to engage in . . . any political activity.

White House staff were presumably ordered as part of their employment to set up the White House for the campaign.  At the very least, two Marines, in full dress uniform, involved in the pageantry were commanded to be there.  The Presidents willingness to insert himself into Justice Department decisions, makes it highly unlikely that these crimes will be investigated by the FBI or any other part of the Justice Department.

These days, we easily pass over transgression of civil violations; they are simply too common in this presidency.  But when you’re talking about obvious and deliberate violations of criminal statutes, it should be a big story — especially when Hatch Act violations have been so extensively covered previously in the Ukraine inquiry last year and also in the run-up to the convention.  The GOP not only pressed forward with their violations but pushed the envelope even further with the pardon and naturalization ceremonies … almost daring anyone to do something about it.

This time, let’s not pass so lightly over these transgressions.  The President has made it crystal clear he believes he is above the law.  His many egregious violations of the Hatch Act in the Republican National Convention are a conscious and deliberate challenge to our Constitution.

In the Constitutional Convention of 1879, a number of delegates were concerned with the amount of power they were giving to the president.  Their concern was sidelined by Alexander Hamilton’s argument that impeachment would reign an overzealous president in.  But in the Trump Administration we have seen the constitutional provision for impeachment obviated by a Republican party in thrall to the president.  So there is only one option left: voting the President out of office.

Listening to parts of the Republican National Convention, I was reminded of The Silver Chair, one of the volumes of CS Lewis’s children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia.  In the story, Eustace, Jill, Prince Rillian and the marsh-wiggle Puddleglum are trapped in the subterranean Underworld of the Green Witch.  The witch has kindled a fire whose magic smoke so muddles the children’s minds that they begin to forget what the real world is like, forgetting, almost, that there is a real world, almost convinced that the sun, too, is just a myth, a story told to children.  It’s only after Puddleglum painfully stamps out the fire with his webbed feet that the smoke’s magic dissipates and the web of lies dissolves.

Between Labor Day and the Nov 3 election, the campaign begins in earnest and the magic smoke will thicken.  We must hang on, remember that there is a sun, and work furiously to stamp the fire out.