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China’s Role in Coronavirus Pandemic Becoming Key US Election Issue

China’s alleged underreporting and misinformation about the coronavirus outbreak that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan is becoming a heated topic in the U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Brian Padden reports that both President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, have launched dueling campaign ads accusing each other of being soft on China’s handling of the pandemic. 
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US House Panel to Consider Proxy Voting, Remote Meetings

A U.S. House of Representatives committee is meeting Wednesday to discuss a resolution proposing lawmakers be allowed to designate another member to cast their vote, and to allow committees to meet remotely. The proposed measure would allow for more flexibility in conducting House business in the case of a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak that has brought warnings against meeting in large groups. The speaker of the House would first have to declare that a pandemic emergency is in effect, and the authorization would last 60 days. During that time, a member may submit a letter saying which other lawmaker may cast the vote for that member after being given exact instructions.   Those designations could be altered or revoked at any time, and a clerk would keep a publicly available list. For committee meetings, the resolution would allow both House members and witnesses to appear remotely, and for lawmakers to cast votes. 
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No Hoax: Bipartisan Probe Says US Intelligence Made Right Call on Russian Election Meddling

U.S. intelligence agencies got it right when they concluded Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, ultimately, with the goal of helping then-candidate Donald Trump, according to a just-released report by U.S. lawmakers. The report Tuesday, by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, is the fourth volume to be published as a result of the committee’s investigation into Russia and focused on the assessment made by the top U.S. intelligence agencies following the 2016 vote. “The Committee found no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community’s conclusions,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr said in a statement. The report comes at what some current and former U.S. officials see as a critical time for the intelligence community, which has been without a permanent leader since former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stepped down last September. And this past February, U.S. President Donald Trump forced out then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, following reports a top aide warned lawmakers during a classified briefing of renewed Russian attempts to meddle in the upcoming presidential election in November. Backing up intel community’s assessment Yet despite the Trump administration’s ongoing distrust of the U.S. intelligence agencies, U.S. lawmakers found no reason to doubt their work on Russian meddling four years ago. “The Committee finds the conclusions of the ICA (Intelligence Community Assessment) are sound and is reassured by the fact that collection and analysis subsequent to the ICA’s publication continue to reinforce its assessments,” the report stated. U.S. lawmakers said they relied on 25 interviews and hearings with more than 40 of the intelligence officers who were involved in crafting the January 2017 ICA on Russian’s interference in the 2016 election, a version of which was released to the public. The January 2017 unclassified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency concluded Russia aimed to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process” as part of a plot approved and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the intelligence agencies wrote at the time, adding, “Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible.” Trump’s rejection of Russian meddling Since taking office, President Trump has consistently rejected the conclusions, repeatedly dismissing those and similar allegations that the Kremlin sought to get him elected as a hoax. Some of Trump’s most pointed criticism has been reserved for former top U.S. officials, including fired FBI Director James Comey, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, whom he described as “political hacks.” On Russia Meddling in US Election, Where Do Trump and US Intel Community Stand?

        The issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election followed President Donald Trump on his 12-day trip through five Asian nations.On Saturday, when asked whether it came up during his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “He said he didn’t meddle; he said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. 

He has also cited Putin’s own denials of the allegations. “He said he didn’t meddle,” Trump told reporters following a conversation with Putin in Vietnam in 2017. “He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.” “President Putin says it’s not Russia,” Trump added during a joint news conference during their July 2018 summit in Helsinki. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Trump Declines to Back US Intel on Russia Meddling

        Donald Trump, standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, has declared he cannot see any reason to believe Moscow meddled in the election that led to him becoming U.S. president in 2016.Every major U.S. 

Still, the Senate Intelligence Committee analysis found the work done by the U.S. intelligence community on Russian interference was sound. The 2017 intelligence assessment “reflects proper analytic tradecraft despite being tasked and completed within a compressed timeframe,” lawmakers concluded. “Analysts were under no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.” Steele dossier Committee lawmakers also downplayed concerns about the intelligence community’s use of a controversial dossier often cited by Trump supporters as evidence the FBI unfairly targeted members of his campaign. The dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, was paid for by Democratic party members seeking to elect Trump’s 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Information included in the footnotes of a recently declassified Justice Department report indicate the dossier may have contained Russian disinformation. But the Senate Intelligence report said the dossier, while included in an annex to the 2017 intelligence assessment, was viewed with skepticism. “Information provided by Christopher Steele to the FBI was not used in the body of the ICA or to support any of its analytic judgment,” it said.  “It was unverified information and had not been disseminated as serialized intelligence reporting.” “Even though the [@FBI] Assistant Director suggested that “the FBI didn’t want to stand behind it,” it qualified for this directive” per the Senate report “…the directive from the President to include all the information the IC had on Russian involvement” pic.twitter.com/c5FTOc2r53— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 21, 2020 On the Steele dossier, former @FBI Dir James Comey told the Senate Intel Committee he was “agnostic as to whether it was footnoted in the document itself, put as an annex” pic.twitter.com/EddB7zUSzI— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 21, 2020The Senate report is not the first to support the intelligence community’s conclusions on Russian interference in the 2016 election. A 2018 report by the same committee found the intelligence work to be “sound.” An investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which Trump labeled as a “witch hunt,” likewise concluded last April that while there was no evidence to establish any coordination between the Kremlin and members of the Trump campaign, “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Still, some Trump supporters said Tuesday that the new Senate report continues to overlook concerns about the intelligence community’s process. 1/ This report reads like a whitewash, Ken, that is, what can be read – over half of it is blacked out. These para are very troubling. The IC often writes complex assesssments on short timelimes. Why were the analysts for the ICA limited to 2 dozen from only 3 agencies? pic.twitter.com/eAv5nd0tnX— Fred Fleitz (@FredFleitz) April 21, 2020“This report reads like a whitewash,” Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who now heads the Center for Security Policy, said on Twitter.I’m told there were CIA dissenters who were subjected to political pressure and that a very senior CIA official disavowed this ICA, calling it “an embarrassment.”— Fred Fleitz (@FredFleitz) April 21, 2020“I’m told there were CIA dissenters who were subjected to political pressure,” he added.  
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Trump Expects to Sign Order on Immigration Halt

Amid the coronavirus pandemic there will be a pause of at least 60 days in the issuance of green cards, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday – a move that will potentially close the country off to tens of thousands of people. “It would be wrong and unjust” for those laid off by COVID-19 “to be replaced by new immigrant labor from abroad,” Trump said.  The short break on the arrival of those granted permanent residency, according to Trump, “will protect the solvency of our health care system” overwhelmed by the pandemic.  The president said he will likely sign the executive order on Wednesday.  Farm workers not affected“The farmers will not be affected by this at all,” Trump said, indicating there will not be restrictions on agricultural workers and others helping to secure the food supply. “If anything, we’re going to make it easier, and we’re doing a process to make it better for those workers to come in to the farm.”  The administration reportedly is also seeking to require technology workers in the country on H-1B visas to provide updated certifications that they are not displacing American workers.   “The president didn’t want to put travel restrictions in place, he didn’t want to put immigration restrictions in place, but we have to because of this terrible virus that’s been unleashed from foreign shores,” National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters earlier in the day.  Critics of the president accuse him of using the health crisis as an excuse to pursue a hardline immigration policy to appeal to his conservative supporters in an election year.  “I’m not doing that at all,” Trump said.  “The president more than anything else just simply wants to try to pivot away from the criticisms of the way he’s handled the pandemic … and towards a subject that can rile up his base and a subject that he’s comfortable talking about,” Christobal Ramon, senior policy analyst for immigration at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told VOA.  “Unfortunately, President Trump seems more interested in fanning anti-immigrant flames than in saving lives,” commented Andrea Flores, deputy policy director of the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union. “We cannot allow President Trump to exploit this pandemic to advance his racism and xenophobia.”  “We have to build back our country,” Trump said Tuesday in the White House press briefing room. “People want to get back to work.” Twenty of the 50 states are moving quickly toward reopening their economies, the president said.  While the White House coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, issued guidelines to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Trump has repeatedly emphasized the need to relax the strictures in the advisories and get people back to work.  Recent tweets by the president with the imperative “Liberate” targeted at several states with Democratic Party governors with strict stay-at-home orders continue to generate criticism.  FILE – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he’s concerned about protests against stay-at-home orders.”He’s fomenting protest, and I hate to say, that is fomenting some violence,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “I’m very concerned about what that might mean for the country if he keeps doing things like that.” Another Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo of New York, whose state is the current epicenter of the global pandemic, met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.  The president did not pressure him on a fast reopening of his state’s economy, Cuomo told MSNBC.  Testing still an issueThe governor said his focus during the meeting was on ramping up COVID-19 testing – a benchmark needed for determining the timing and extent of relaxing social guidelines. Cuomo said he also told Trump that states, reeling from the economic impact of shutdowns, need federal funding.  “I stayed focused on what we were there to talk about and for me the substantive agenda was testing – who does what, how do we get it up the scale – and somebody has to stand up for funding for the states,” the governor said during a live telephone interview.  “That’s part of phase four” of stimulus money, said the president, who on Tuesday lauded the Senate for approving a third-phase package of nearly half a trillion dollars that is expected to be approved by the House on a bipartisan basis Wednesday.  The coronavirus, for which there is no vaccine, has claimed nearly 45,000 lives in the United States – the most reported by any country.  A total of 820,000 people in the country are confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19,  with more than 250,000 in the state of New York alone.  An improvement in the trend is being seen in large metropolitan areas across the country, except for the Washington, D.C. area, a member of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, told reporters Tuesday.  Additionally, “we’re still seeing outbreaks in long-term care facilities” such as nursing homes, she said.  Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report. 
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