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What the documents say: A note the committee obtained and sent by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in March 2020 warned that the then isolated cases of Covid-19 would turn into a “very serious public health emergency” and lamented that “the movement was slow ”to prepare. The memo advised the president to strengthen national supply chains for PPE and accelerate the development of diagnostics and therapies.
In the months that followed, according to other documents the committee released on Wednesday, Navarro and other senior officials and outside advisers pushed federal agencies to award non-competitive contracts for pharmaceutical ingredients and other supplies. to recently formed companies with political ties to the Trump administration.
One deal under investigation is a $ 354 million contract awarded to the Phlow Corporation – a new government contractor that had incorporated just months before receiving the funds. It was the largest contract ever awarded by BARDA, and it followed a series of emails from Navarro to agency executives in March 2020.
“Phlow needs to be enlightened as quickly as possible on a human level … Please move this puppy around in Trump’s time,” he wrote. In a subsequent post, he said: “My head will explode if this contract is not immediately approved.”
Steven Hatfill, an assistant assistant professor at George Washington University and linked to White House political adviser Stephen Bannon, was also involved in negotiating the contract, the committee said.
The panel is also investigating a $ 3 million federal contract awarded to a company formed by former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Zachary Fuentes to provide respiratory masks to the Navajo Nation through the services of Indian health. The Fuentes company received the contract only 11 days after its creation.
“When the respirators were delivered, IHS determined they were not suitable for use in a medical or surgical environment,” the committee wrote, requesting further records detailing how the contract was negotiated.
Why is this important: The Trump administration’s Covid contract came under intense scrutiny last year. A $ 765 million loan plan to Eastman Kodak to switch to the production of drug ingredients was scuttled after suspicious stock transactions on the eve of the loan’s announcement prompted the US International Development Finance Corp to quote ” recent allegations of wrongdoing “.
But Democrats in charge of the Capitol Hill watch panels say there is still more to be discovered, in part because the Trump administration has not responded to requests for documents. Republicans on the committees complain that the panels are focusing too much on the past and failing to hold the Biden administration accountable.
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