theintercept--2020-04-01--3M Faces Pressure to Prevent Price Gouging Among Distributors of Its N95 Masks

of its N95 respirator masks has continued to swell , pressure is mounting on 3M , which manufactures the masks and other protective gear , to crack down on price gouging among its distributors .
Tuesday , amid widespread reports that vendors of medical supplies are wildly overcharging for the desperately needed protective devices , the Minnesota-based company insisted that it is committed to combating the inflation of prices for its products used during the coronavirus pandemic .
In a statement about both price gouging and the sale of counterfeit masks , which also appears to be a problem , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pursue third-parties that seek to take advantage of this crisis .
We are working with law enforcement authorities around the world — including , in the U.S. , the U.S. Attorney General , state Attorneys General , and local authorities.
” But some civic groups are asking the company to do more .
The Metro Industrial Areas Foundation , or Metro IAF , a Queens-based nonprofit , responded to 3M ’ s statement yesterday with a letter to the company ’ s CEO , Mike Roman , insisting that Roman make it clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if they take advantage of the desperate need for protective gear they won ’ t be able to sell 3M ’ s products in the future .
The group is also demanding that , within 72 hours , 3M put together a database of its worldwide inventory of N95 masks , with product information , quantities , pricing , payment terms , location , and contact information — and make it available to health care providers .
“ We believe that putting the burden on healthcare buyers and law enforcement to fix the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sidesteps 3M ’ s duty of responsible care for its products , ” Rev .
Patrick O ’ Connor of the First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica , Queens , wrote on behalf of the organization .
Metro IAF , an affiliate of a 75-year-old organizing network , isn ’ t usually involved in procuring emergency medical gear .
The group has a history of working on issues such as jobs , criminal justice , education , and housing .
But its focus has changed in recent weeks as clergy in some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get desperate reports from their members on the front lines .
“ We were all hearing the same story over and over again : We don ’ t have the equipment we need , we don ’ t have masks , we don ’ t have what we need to protect ourselves , ” said Rev .
David K. Brawley of the St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East Brooklyn .
Many of Brawley ’ s congregants are front-line health care workers — “ the folks who work in services within the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also the folks who people tend to forget about , ” he said .
“ These are people I deeply care about and love.
” So organizers from the group , whose member organizations include religious congregations , unions , schools , community health centers , and other civic institutions , began to investigate whether they might be able to arrange a purchase of some of the supplies themselves — and quickly found themselves in what has become the “ Wild West ” global market of medical supplies .
Among the suppliers they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last week to have millions of N95 masks , but demanded a minimum purchase of 20 million .
Within hours of the distributor ’ s demand , the group had assembled a consortium of 19 different entities in need of the masks , including two major hospital chains , one city health department in Colorado , six county governments in three states , and one governor ’ s office .
Though several of the buyers were also hoping to purchase gowns , gloves , ventilators , and other supplies , they were pooling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the minimum order of 3M ’ s 1860 N95 mask , which protects health care workers against airborne particles and is “ resistant to splash and spatter of blood and other infectious materials.
” Although the 1860 N95 masks should cost $ 1.27 each , according to a price list 3M issued yesterday , the Canadian dealer was charging more than $ 7 per mask .
But the jacked-up price isn ’ t what killed the deal .
Even the major hospital chains were desperate enough to spend the money .
Instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall apart when the dealer said that the Canadian military had seized 10 million of the masks and then insisted that the group not only commit to buying the remaining 20 million masks but also to five additional monthly purchases of 20 million masks , totaling $ 140 million .
While it is still exploring how to help purchase managers find supplies , Metro IAF has pivoted since that and other deals fell through .
“ After a few of these experiences , our team regrouped and realized that 3M and other larger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mess , ” said Joe Morris , an organizer with the group .
“ They maintain that they don ’ t have control , ” Morris said of 3M .
“ We maintain they need to get control .
Their duty doesn ’ t end after manufacture.
” In addition to petitioning 3M to use its influence with its distributors , Metro IAF is also now focusing on getting the right kind of intervention from the defense logistics agency to coordinate supplies .
“ We need our government to do what the Canadian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Morris .
While health care workers are reportedly reusing masks , which is not standard medical practice , the CDC issued updated guidelines yesterday for “ optimizing ” the use of N95 masks during the Covid-19 outbreak .
Among the strategies it listed to cope with the shortage were using “ N95 respirators beyond the manufacturer-designated shelf life for training and fit testing ” and extending their use “ by wearing the same N95 for repeated close contact encounters with several different patients.
” The CDC is reportedly also considering whether the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While that guidance is still being developed , it is expected to clarify that people who aren ’ t health care workers shouldn ’ t be using N95 masks .
Meanwhile , many health care workers have been left to fend for themselves .
Erik Stilp , an interventional cardiologist in Milwaukee , noted that some “ savvy individual health care providers have identified supply chains on their own.
” Stilp said that , while many hospitals are running short of the N95 masks , several hardware stores seemed to have them available @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re usually acquired for in bulk.
” “ No large hospital is going to allow for unapproved PPE acquired by their staffers , ” said Stilp .
“ But when providers are stressed and potentially unsafe and their only option is supplying themselves with rogue PPE , that ’ s a difficult conundrum for a doctor to be in.
” Metro IAF is hoping that the extraordinary conundrum will motivate 3M to do everything in its power to stop its distributors from making it difficult and more expensive for health care workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new terrain for the group , its request is similar to ones it has made of the gun industry in the past .
“ We ’ ve asked gun manufacturers to take responsibility for their distribution chains and to say to their dealers that they have standards — that if you to sell a Glock or a Smith & Wesson , you need to meet Glock and Smith & Wesson ’ s standards , ” explained Morris .
“ Just as a gun manufacturer ought to be concerned with whether their distributors and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3M during a public health emergency care about the conduct of their distributors .
They ’ re both life and death matters .
”

As the black market trade of its N95 respirator masks has continued to swell, pressure is mounting on 3M, which manufactures the masks and other protective gear, to crack down on price gouging among its distributors.
Tuesday, amid widespread reports that vendors of medical supplies are wildly overcharging for the desperately needed protective devices, the Minnesota-based company insisted that it is committed to combating the inflation of prices for its products used during the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement about both price gouging and the sale of counterfeit masks, which also appears to be a problem, 3M promised that it “will aggressively pursue third-parties that seek to take advantage of this crisis. We are working with law enforcement authorities around the world — including, in the U.S., the U.S. Attorney General, state Attorneys General, and local authorities.”
But some civic groups are asking the company to do more. The Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, or Metro IAF, a Queens-based nonprofit, responded to 3M’s statement yesterday with a letter to the company’s CEO, Mike Roman, insisting that Roman make it clear to the company’s distributors that if they take advantage of the desperate need for protective gear they won’t be able to sell 3M’s products in the future.
The group is also demanding that, within 72 hours, 3M put together a database of its worldwide inventory of N95 masks, with product information, quantities, pricing, payment terms, location, and contact information — and make it available to health care providers. “We believe that putting the burden on healthcare buyers and law enforcement to fix the problem of price gouging is unrealistic and sidesteps 3M’s duty of responsible care for its products,” Rev. Patrick O’Connor of the First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, Queens, wrote on behalf of the organization.
Metro IAF, an affiliate of a 75-year-old organizing network, isn’t usually involved in procuring emergency medical gear. The group has a history of working on issues such as jobs, criminal justice, education, and housing. But its focus has changed in recent weeks as clergy in some of the churches that belong to the network began to get desperate reports from their members on the front lines.
“We were all hearing the same story over and over again: We don’t have the equipment we need, we don’t have masks, we don’t have what we need to protect ourselves,” said Rev. David K. Brawley of the St. Paul Community Baptist Church in East Brooklyn. Many of Brawley’s congregants are front-line health care workers — “the folks who work in services within the hospitals, and not just doctors, also the folks who people tend to forget about,” he said. “These are people I deeply care about and love.”
So organizers from the group, whose member organizations include religious congregations, unions, schools, community health centers, and other civic institutions, began to investigate whether they might be able to arrange a purchase of some of the supplies themselves — and quickly found themselves in what has become the “Wild West” global market of medical supplies. Among the suppliers they identified was a Canadian distributor who claimed last week to have millions of N95 masks, but demanded a minimum purchase of 20 million.
Within hours of the distributor’s demand, the group had assembled a consortium of 19 different entities in need of the masks, including two major hospital chains, one city health department in Colorado, six county governments in three states, and one governor’s office. Though several of the buyers were also hoping to purchase gowns, gloves, ventilators, and other supplies, they were pooling resources to be able to put in the minimum order of 3M’s 1860 N95 mask, which protects health care workers against airborne particles and is “resistant to splash and spatter of blood and other infectious materials.”
Although the 1860 N95 masks should cost $1.27 each, according to a price list 3M issued yesterday, the Canadian dealer was charging more than $7 per mask. But the jacked-up price isn’t what killed the deal. Even the major hospital chains were desperate enough to spend the money. Instead, the group’s purchase began to fall apart when the dealer said that the Canadian military had seized 10 million of the masks and then insisted that the group not only commit to buying the remaining 20 million masks but also to five additional monthly purchases of 20 million masks, totaling $140 million.
While it is still exploring how to help purchase managers find supplies, Metro IAF has pivoted since that and other deals fell through. “After a few of these experiences, our team regrouped and realized that 3M and other larger players needed to help clean up this mess,” said Joe Morris, an organizer with the group. “They maintain that they don’t have control,” Morris said of 3M. “We maintain they need to get control. Their duty doesn’t end after manufacture.”
In addition to petitioning 3M to use its influence with its distributors, Metro IAF is also now focusing on getting the right kind of intervention from the defense logistics agency to coordinate supplies. “We need our government to do what the Canadian government seemed to be doing,” said Morris.
While health care workers are reportedly reusing masks, which is not standard medical practice, the CDC issued updated guidelines yesterday for “optimizing” the use of N95 masks during the Covid-19 outbreak. Among the strategies it listed to cope with the shortage were using “N95 respirators beyond the manufacturer-designated shelf life for training and fit testing” and extending their use “by wearing the same N95 for repeated close contact encounters with several different patients.” The CDC is reportedly also considering whether the general public should wear face masks. While that guidance is still being developed, it is expected to clarify that people who aren’t health care workers shouldn’t be using N95 masks.
Meanwhile, many health care workers have been left to fend for themselves. Erik Stilp, an interventional cardiologist in Milwaukee, noted that some “savvy individual health care providers have identified supply chains on their own.” Stilp said that, while many hospitals are running short of the N95 masks, several hardware stores seemed to have them available “at double or triple what they’re usually acquired for in bulk.”
“No large hospital is going to allow for unapproved PPE acquired by their staffers,” said Stilp. “But when providers are stressed and potentially unsafe and their only option is supplying themselves with rogue PPE, that’s a difficult conundrum for a doctor to be in.”
Metro IAF is hoping that the extraordinary conundrum will motivate 3M to do everything in its power to stop its distributors from making it difficult and more expensive for health care workers to obtain its masks. While its new terrain for the group, its request is similar to ones it has made of the gun industry in the past.
“We’ve asked gun manufacturers to take responsibility for their distribution chains and to say to their dealers that they have standards — that if you to sell a Glock or a Smith & Wesson, you need to meet Glock and Smith & Wesson’s standards,” explained Morris. “Just as a gun manufacturer ought to be concerned with whether their distributors and sales outlets act responsibly, so should 3M during a public health emergency care about the conduct of their distributors. They’re both life and death matters.”


theintercept--2020-04-01--New York City Has Done Almost Nothing to Protect 70,000 People in its Homeless Shelters From Coronav

New York City Has Done Almost Nothing to Protect 70,000 People in its Homeless Shelters From Coronavirus Spread

is doing her best to keep her family and others safe during the coronavirus pandemic .
She washes her hands a lot ; she cleans constantly ; she goes on social distance walks with her kids , 10-month-old Logan and 4-year-old Abigail .
But there ’ s only so much she can do while living at one of New York City ’ s approximately 450 homeless shelters .
Garcia , a 27-year-old former preschool teacher who now works at the community group Legal Hand , has asthma , and Logan has a respiratory condition tied to fibromyalgia , meaning they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the disease caused by the novel coronavirus .
Even though New York City is the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States , the shelter where they live has done little to mitigate the potential spread of the virus .
The conditions , in fact , could contribute to its spread : There are no cooking facilities except for a single microwave , shared by almost 70 adults and 55 children .
Each family has only one room , meaning that if a family member gets sick , quarantine — what medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highly contagious disease — is not an option .
The facility ’ s case managers , like countless people across the country , are working from home — leaving Garcia and others in the shelter behind .
“ It ’ s awfully concerning , ” Garcia said .
“ As homeless people , we ’ re often forgotten about.
” As the number of coronavirus cases in New York City continues to rise — 75,000 as of midday Tuesday — the city ’ s hospitals and morgues are struggling to keep up .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ homelessness in the city are among those most susceptible to getting infected .
In fact , as of Sunday , at least 99 people living in the city ’ s shelters had tested positive for the virus , the New York Times reported .
In other large cities , the number remains in the single digits .
The city , however , has taken little meaningful action to protect the approximately 63,000 people living in shelters or the streets , a particularly crude reality as the homelessness crisis in the city is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including by Gov .
Andrew Cuomo , whose handling of the pandemic has inspired nationwide adulation .
During his three terms as governor , which have overlapped with the tenures of mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio , homelessness in New York City skyrocketed .
The mayors and governor failed to coordinate and fund policies to stem the rise and even actively worsened it .
In 2011 , Cuomo , who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton , pulled state funding for Advantage , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to abruptly end it .
The move sent at least 8,500 families back into shelter .
The city ’ s response to the particular needs of homeless populations during the pandemic has been feeble .
The Department of Homeless Services website has the same generic advice as all city agencies , such as “ stay home if sick.
” For those forced to choose between staying at a homeless shelter or sleeping in the streets or on trains , staying “ home ” is not much of a choice , since the shelters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distancing and quarantine .
Recently , the city has been conducting sweeps , but that ’ s not much of a solution either .
“ They move to another block or they ’ re likely arrested , ” said Craig Hughes , a social work supervisor with the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that “ Unless individual housing units are available , do not clear encampments during community spread of Covid-19.
” The city ’ s plan appears limited to securing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to self-isolate if they feel ill .
According to a letter from the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless to de Blasio ’ s administration , there are undue burdens on sick homeless people trying to access these rooms , including denying access to Covid-19-positive or likely positive homeless single adults who haven ’ t had recent contact with the Department of Homeless Services .
That ’ s resulted in adults continuing to live in aggregate shelters with people who ’ ve tested positive for the virus .
Joshua Goldfein @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aid Society , estimates the need will be much higher than 500 rooms .
“ We ’ re going to have thousands of people who need to be isolated , ” he said .
( The mayor ’ s office , which oversees the shelters , did not respond to a request for comment . )
“ Every day we don ’ t do it , more people will become infected .
These people are not socially distancing .
It ’ s just not possible for them .
Every day that it doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worse.
” With about 100,000 vacant hotel rooms in the city , there are enough empty rooms to get both street and sheltered homeless people their own rooms , said Hughes .
“ The shelter system should be emptied into hotels .
Every single person on the street should be in a hotel room to keep them safe.
” Hughes says .
“ The actions they ’ re taking shows that ’ s not the priority in any way for the Mayor or Governor.
” People in shelters “ are essentially packed together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s a recipe for humanitarian disaster.
” Victoria Wolf , who is 66 years old , knows that experience all too well .
She lives in a shelter in Brooklyn housing 102 women on two floors .
There are seven women in her room , while other rooms have 11-13 people in them .
There are two Purell hand sanitizer dispensers for the entire facility .
Some staffers at the shelter have been wearing face masks , but when Wolf asked when the women would get them , she was told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wolf , who is blind and ended up in the shelter after her husband left her , is worried about her health and also about how the virus will amplify tensions in the shelter .
“ There ’ s fear .
Emotions are volatile .
There ’ s a lot of fighting going on consequently .
You don ’ t trust the people taking care of you , because they lie .
You already feel like you ’ re at the bottom of the social barrel.
” She said that a lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after a stint in jail — raising the possibility of transmission between the jails , where conditions also make the risk of infection very high , and the shelters .
“ To treat us like the dregs of society is not nice , ” Wolf said .
“ We all are equally important , and I wish sometimes people would see that.
” “ We ’ re second-class citizens , on par with the prisons , no supplies [ there ] either.
” At another shelter , in Crown Heights , Brooklyn , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a room with another man , is worried .
“ I am acutely aware if anyone contracts the virus here , especially my roommate , odds are I will contract it , as well.
” There hasn ’ t been a house meeting to address concerns .
They got gloves about two weeks ago , he says , but those have since run out .
Tokuhisa , who in the past few days has developed a fever and cough , has a message for public officials .
“ This crisis has been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continually neglected and put off the needs of the most vulnerable New Yorkers , it would be much easier to manage , ” he said .
“ I am reminded of the words of Malcolm X all those years ago when he mentioned , ‘ Chickens coming home to roost.
’ ” Correction : April 1 , 2020 , 4:08 p.m .
ET A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Craig Hughes as Chris Hughes .

Johanna Garcia is doing her best to keep her family and others safe during the coronavirus pandemic. She washes her hands a lot; she cleans constantly; she goes on social distance walks with her kids, 10-month-old Logan and 4-year-old Abigail. But there’s only so much she can do while living at one of New York City’s approximately 450 homeless shelters.
Garcia, a 27-year-old former preschool teacher who now works at the community group Legal Hand, has asthma, and Logan has a respiratory condition tied to fibromyalgia, meaning they are at high risk for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Even though New York City is the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, the shelter where they live has done little to mitigate the potential spread of the virus. The conditions, in fact, could contribute to its spread: There are no cooking facilities except for a single microwave, shared by almost 70 adults and 55 children. Each family has only one room, meaning that if a family member gets sick, quarantine — what medical experts recommend to prevent spread of the highly contagious disease — is not an option. The facility’s case managers, like countless people across the country, are working from home — leaving Garcia and others in the shelter behind.
“It’s awfully concerning,” Garcia said. “As homeless people, we’re often forgotten about.”
As the number of coronavirus cases in New York City continues to rise — 75,000 as of midday Tuesday — the city’s hospitals and morgues are struggling to keep up. Along with incarcerated populations, people experiencing homelessness in the city are among those most susceptible to getting infected. In fact, as of Sunday, at least 99 people living in the city’s shelters had tested positive for the virus, the New York Times reported. In other large cities, the number remains in the single digits. The city, however, has taken little meaningful action to protect the approximately 63,000 people living in shelters or the streets, a particularly crude reality as the homelessness crisis in the city is the result of years of poor policy decisions, including by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose handling of the pandemic has inspired nationwide adulation.
During his three terms as governor, which have overlapped with the tenures of mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, homelessness in New York City skyrocketed. The mayors and governor failed to coordinate and fund policies to stem the rise and even actively worsened it. In 2011, Cuomo, who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, pulled state funding for Advantage, a rent subsidy program, prompting Bloomberg to abruptly end it. The move sent at least 8,500 families back into shelter.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The city’s response to the particular needs of homeless populations during the pandemic has been feeble. The Department of Homeless Services website has the same generic advice as all city agencies, such as “stay home if sick.” For those forced to choose between staying at a homeless shelter or sleeping in the streets or on trains, staying “home” is not much of a choice, since the shelters make it virtually impossible to practice social distancing and quarantine.
Recently, the city has been conducting sweeps, but that’s not much of a solution either. “They move to another block or they’re likely arrested,” said Craig Hughes, a social work supervisor with the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of Covid-19.”
Garcia and her kids — Abigail, 4, and Logan, 10 months — on their daily walk through the South Bronx. Photo: Ryan Christopher Jones for The Intercept
The city’s plan appears limited to securing 500 hotel rooms for people experiencing homelessness to self-isolate if they feel ill. According to a letter from the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless to de Blasio’s administration, there are undue burdens on sick homeless people trying to access these rooms, including denying access to Covid-19-positive or likely positive homeless single adults who haven’t had recent contact with the Department of Homeless Services. That’s resulted in adults continuing to live in aggregate shelters with people who’ve tested positive for the virus.
Joshua Goldfein, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, estimates the need will be much higher than 500 rooms. “We’re going to have thousands of people who need to be isolated,” he said. (The mayor’s office, which oversees the shelters, did not respond to a request for comment.)
“Every day we don’t do it, more people will become infected. These people are not socially distancing. It’s just not possible for them. Every day that it doesn’t happen, the problem gets worse.”
With about 100,000 vacant hotel rooms in the city, there are enough empty rooms to get both street and sheltered homeless people their own rooms, said Hughes. “The shelter system should be emptied into hotels. Every single person on the street should be in a hotel room to keep them safe.” Hughes says. “The actions they’re taking shows that’s not the priority in any way for the Mayor or Governor.”
People in shelters “are essentially packed together,” Hughes said. “And that’s a recipe for humanitarian disaster.”
Victoria Wolf, who is 66 years old, knows that experience all too well. She lives in a shelter in Brooklyn housing 102 women on two floors. There are seven women in her room, while other rooms have 11-13 people in them. There are two Purell hand sanitizer dispensers for the entire facility. Some staffers at the shelter have been wearing face masks, but when Wolf asked when the women would get them, she was told “when you have a cough.”
Wolf, who is blind and ended up in the shelter after her husband left her, is worried about her health and also about how the virus will amplify tensions in the shelter.
Photo: Ryan Christopher Jones for The Intercept
“There’s fear. Emotions are volatile. There’s a lot of fighting going on consequently. You don’t trust the people taking care of you, because they lie. You already feel like you’re at the bottom of the social barrel.”
She said that a lot of the women were staying at the shelter after a stint in jail — raising the possibility of transmission between the jails, where conditions also make the risk of infection very high, and the shelters. “To treat us like the dregs of society is not nice,” Wolf said. “We all are equally important, and I wish sometimes people would see that.”
“We’re second-class citizens, on par with the prisons, no supplies [there] either.”
At another shelter, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 34-year-old J. W. Tokuhisa, who shares a room with another man, is worried. “I am acutely aware if anyone contracts the virus here, especially my roommate, odds are I will contract it, as well.” There hasn’t been a house meeting to address concerns. They got gloves about two weeks ago, he says, but those have since run out.
Tokuhisa, who in the past few days has developed a fever and cough, has a message for public officials. “This crisis has been a long time coming and had they not continually neglected and put off the needs of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, it would be much easier to manage,” he said. “I am reminded of the words of Malcolm X all those years ago when he mentioned, ‘Chickens coming home to roost.’”
Correction: April 1, 2020, 4:08 p.m. ET
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Craig Hughes as Chris Hughes.


theintercept--2020-04-01--A Private Equity Baron Sitting on an Empty Philadelphia Hospital Is in Line For Huge Tax Gift in the

A Private Equity Baron Sitting on an Empty Philadelphia Hospital Is in Line For Huge Tax Gift in the Covid-19 Stimulus

for a place to house its growing number of coronavirus patients , a millionaire health care and private equity executive is effectively holding a hospital he owns hostage — and is in line for a massive tax break under the coronavirus stimulus plan signed into law last week .
Joel Freedman bought Philadelphia ’ s Hahnemann University Hospital , which primarily served low-income residents , along with St. Christopher Children Hospital , in 2018 for a total of $ 170 million .
Despite community protests that captured national attention , he shuttered it in September , hoping to turn a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to turn it into luxury condos .
Amid the coronavirus pandemic , city officials said they could not afford Freedman ’ s offer for the building , which he said was a fraction of market value .
They were negotiating its use until last week , when they said Freedman ’ s offer to rent the building to the city for just under $ 1 million a month , including necessary improvements and expenses was “ unreasonable.
” Meanwhile , the Los Angeles-based Freedman could benefit from the $ 2 trillion stimulus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the property-related depreciation real estate investors are allowed to use to lessen their tax bill .
Depreciation is a paper cost that real estate investors can use to factor in losses to offset other income and reduce what they pay in taxes .
In Freedman ’ s case , that means he can use recent “ losses ” from the hospital as it depreciates to offset his overall taxable income and , as a result , what he owes in taxes .
A spokesperson for Freedman did not respond to requests for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ estate from Hahnemann from the last two years plus this year can be used to offset any tax liabilities for his household , to the extent that he ’ s got profit from other things that he ’ s done ” said Eileen Appelbaum , co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington , D.C .
Under the stimulus , Freedman would no longer be limited in the amount of business losses he could use to offset wages or investment income , according to a professor at the University of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefiting from the 800-page stimulus , which includes a $ 100 billion allocation for hospitals , in part to help fight the coronavirus .
Easton hospital , another private equity-owned hospital in Pennsylvania , got one of the first payouts of the coronavirus stimulus plan for $ 8 million after threatening to shut down on Friday at midnight .
“ They ’ re just shameless , ” said Appelbaum .
“ The very first payment out of that stimulus package went to a hospital owned by private equity that was blackmailing the governor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s poorest and most critically ill residents since 1848 , was acquired in 2018 by a subsidiary of American Academic Health System LLC , of which Freedman is the founder and chief executive officer .
That subsidiary , Philadelphia Academic Health Systems , filed for bankruptcy in June .
Freedman said Hahnemann had been losing millions of dollars a month , but the hospital ’ s real estate was not included in the bankruptcy filing .
Rather , it was redistributed to another of Freedman ’ s companies , Broad Street Health Care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which passed unanimously in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House , corporations and businesses will still see the bulk of dollars allocated , while workers get modest increases in unemployment benefits and a one-time check of up to $ 1,200 per individual .
At least one provision benefitting real estate investors , which increases the amount of nonbusiness income and capital gains they can protect from taxation , could result in tax breaks up to $ 170 billion over 10 years .
“ That group comprises the top 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Revenue Service data , ” the New York Times reported .
“ The result is that people can enjoy big tax breaks stemming from only-on-paper losses , even if they enjoy big cash profits in the real world.
” Philadelphia ’ s St. Christopher Hospital , which Freedman acquired along with Hahnemann in 2018 , was purchased earlier this year .
Affiliates of Freedman ’ s company , a number of which he also owns , have run facilities across the country including the Howard University Hospital in Washington , D.C. After Hahnemann @ @ @ @ @ @ @ listed his Rittenhouse Square home for $ 3.5 million .
“ We ’ d have to know more about his personal situation to know if he will personally benefit , ” Appelbaum said .
“ But if he owns businesses that have made a profit anywhere in the last two years or this year , he can use the paper losses from depreciation on real estate to offset that profit and reduce any taxes he would have to pay.
” Since it ’ s retroactive , Freedman could be in for a substantial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxes he paid in previous years .
Hahnemann ’ s parent company is an LLC , which are treated as partnerships for tax purposes .
That means income from the company is partially Freedman ’ s own and would qualify for the new stimulus tax break .
Freedman is also the president and founder of Paladin Healthcare , AAHS ’ s parent company .
has 4,843 confirmed Covid-19 cases , and 63 deaths , including 1,315 cases and 14 deaths in Philadelphia .
The city is preparing to face a rapid increase in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York City , the epicenter of the pandemic , where health care workers have already begun to face the impacts of shortages in hospital space and supplies , and are bracing to run out of space in city morgues .
City officials last week said Freedman was using his position to profit while the city was trying to deal with a public health crisis .
“ I think he ’ s looking at this as a business transaction rather than providing an imminent and important aid to the city and our residents , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reporters .
A representative for Freedman has cited having an interested buyer as one reason he can ’ t allow the city to use the hospital .
Freedman also said he offered the city a rate at a fraction of market cost .
Officials seeking additional space to treat patients said last week that they had scrapped attempts to negotiate with Freedman to use the 496-bed facility because they couldn ’ t accept his offer .
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said during a press conference last week that the city needed “ to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital beds.
” Kenney said the city had offered to pay a smaller amount in rent and to cover costs of what would be time-consuming repair and upkeep to make the hospital usable again , which Freedman refused .
The next day , the city announced that Temple University would allow use of its Liacouras Center as an overflow hospital , free of charge .
In Philadelphia , which has the highest poverty rate of the nation ’ s 10 most populous cities , experts have expressed concern that the coronavirus could disproportionately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wolf has the authority to seize the hospital immediately , Neil Makhija , lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School , told The Intercept .
“ This is no time to negotiate with Joel Freedman , and no time to wait for the long process of eminent domain .
Governor Wolf has the legal authority under his emergency declaration to ‘ commandeer or utilize ’ private property as needed .
The state should invoke that authority and prepare for the worst , so we aren ’ t caught off guard when we need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gym , who has been an outspoken voice in efforts to save Hahnemann and prevent similar financial mismanagement in the future , called last week for the city to acquire Hahnemann through eminent domain .
“ We can not allow unconscionable greed to get in the way of saving lives , ” Gym tweeted last week .
Kenney said the city had determined that proposal to be too costly and time consuming .
“ It is outrageous that a Philadelphia real estate investor who closed a hospital is now trying to gouge the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted Monday .
“ @ HelenGymPHL is right : the city should reopen Hahnemann hospital immediately.
” In July , Sanders joined a demonstration protesting Hahnemann ’ s closing .
Former Vice President Joe Biden , a Pennsylvania native whose campaign headquarters is in Philadelphia , has not taken a position on the issue .
Biden ’ s campaign did not respond to a request for comment .
Days after Kenney announced the city was ending attempts to use the hospital , Freedman ’ s Rittenhouse Square-area residence was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and “ FREE HAHNEMANN.
” At least “ many of the hospitals owned by private equity are in very bad shape , ” Appelbaum said .
“ I imagine we ’ re gon na see a lot more of what just happened with Hahnemann , and what just happened at Easton .
”

As Philadelphia searches for a place to house its growing number of coronavirus patients, a millionaire health care and private equity executive is effectively holding a hospital he owns hostage — and is in line for a massive tax break under the coronavirus stimulus plan signed into law last week.
Joel Freedman bought Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University Hospital, which primarily served low-income residents, along with St. Christopher Children Hospital, in 2018 for a total of $170 million. Despite community protests that captured national attention, he shuttered it in September, hoping to turn a profit by selling the building, possibly to turn it into luxury condos. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, city officials said they could not afford Freedman’s offer for the building, which he said was a fraction of market value. They were negotiating its use until last week, when they said Freedman’s offer to rent the building to the city for just under $1 million a month, including necessary improvements and expenses was “unreasonable.”
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles-based Freedman could benefit from the $2 trillion stimulus, which temporarily and retroactively lifts a cap on the property-related depreciation real estate investors are allowed to use to lessen their tax bill. Depreciation is a paper cost that real estate investors can use to factor in losses to offset other income and reduce what they pay in taxes. In Freedman’s case, that means he can use recent “losses” from the hospital as it depreciates to offset his overall taxable income and, as a result, what he owes in taxes. A spokesperson for Freedman did not respond to requests for comment.
“Depreciation on the real estate from Hahnemann from the last two years plus this year can be used to offset any tax liabilities for his household, to the extent that he’s got profit from other things that he’s done” said Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
Under the stimulus, Freedman would no longer be limited in the amount of business losses he could use to offset wages or investment income, according to a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Other hospitals are benefiting from the 800-page stimulus, which includes a $100 billion allocation for hospitals, in part to help fight the coronavirus. Easton hospital, another private equity-owned hospital in Pennsylvania, got one of the first payouts of the coronavirus stimulus plan for $8 million after threatening to shut down on Friday at midnight. “They’re just shameless,” said Appelbaum. “The very first payment out of that stimulus package went to a hospital owned by private equity that was blackmailing the governor of Pennsylvania.”
Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Hahnemann, which had served the city’s poorest and most critically ill residents since 1848, was acquired in 2018 by a subsidiary of American Academic Health System LLC, of which Freedman is the founder and chief executive officer. That subsidiary, Philadelphia Academic Health Systems, filed for bankruptcy in June. Freedman said Hahnemann had been losing millions of dollars a month, but the hospital’s real estate was not included in the bankruptcy filing. Rather, it was redistributed to another of Freedman’s companies, Broad Street Health Care Properties.
Under the federal stimulus, which passed unanimously in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House, corporations and businesses will still see the bulk of dollars allocated, while workers get modest increases in unemployment benefits and a one-time check of up to $1,200 per individual. At least one provision benefitting real estate investors, which increases the amount of nonbusiness income and capital gains they can protect from taxation, could result in tax breaks up to $170 billion over 10 years.
“That group comprises the top 1 percent of taxpayers, according to Internal Revenue Service data,” the New York Times reported. “The result is that people can enjoy big tax breaks stemming from only-on-paper losses, even if they enjoy big cash profits in the real world.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Philadelphia’s St. Christopher Hospital, which Freedman acquired along with Hahnemann in 2018, was purchased earlier this year. Affiliates of Freedman’s company, a number of which he also owns, have run facilities across the country including the Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. After Hahnemann’s closing last year, Freedman listed his Rittenhouse Square home for $3.5 million.
“We’d have to know more about his personal situation to know if he will personally benefit,” Appelbaum said. “But if he owns businesses that have made a profit anywhere in the last two years or this year, he can use the paper losses from depreciation on real estate to offset that profit and reduce any taxes he would have to pay.”
Since it’s retroactive, Freedman could be in for a substantial rebate if the paper losses can offset taxes he paid in previous years.
Hahnemann’s parent company is an LLC, which are treated as partnerships for tax purposes. That means income from the company is partially Freedman’s own and would qualify for the new stimulus tax break. Freedman is also the president and founder of Paladin Healthcare, AAHS’s parent company.
Photo: Matt Rourke/AP
Pennsylvania so far has 4,843 confirmed Covid-19 cases, and 63 deaths, including 1,315 cases and 14 deaths in Philadelphia. The city is preparing to face a rapid increase in cases and deaths already seen in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, where health care workers have already begun to face the impacts of shortages in hospital space and supplies, and are bracing to run out of space in city morgues.
City officials last week said Freedman was using his position to profit while the city was trying to deal with a public health crisis. “I think he’s looking at this as a business transaction rather than providing an imminent and important aid to the city and our residents,” City Managing Director Brian Abernathy told reporters. A representative for Freedman has cited having an interested buyer as one reason he can’t allow the city to use the hospital. Freedman also said he offered the city a rate at a fraction of market cost.
Officials seeking additional space to treat patients said last week that they had scrapped attempts to negotiate with Freedman to use the 496-bed facility because they couldn’t accept his offer. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said during a press conference last week that the city needed “to find facilities that could contain several hundred hospital beds.” Kenney said the city had offered to pay a smaller amount in rent and to cover costs of what would be time-consuming repair and upkeep to make the hospital usable again, which Freedman refused.
The next day, the city announced that Temple University would allow use of its Liacouras Center as an overflow hospital, free of charge. In Philadelphia, which has the highest poverty rate of the nation’s 10 most populous cities, experts have expressed concern that the coronavirus could disproportionately impact poor residents.
Gov. Tom Wolf has the authority to seize the hospital immediately, Neil Makhija, lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School, told The Intercept. “This is no time to negotiate with Joel Freedman, and no time to wait for the long process of eminent domain. Governor Wolf has the legal authority under his emergency declaration to ‘commandeer or utilize’ private property as needed. The state should invoke that authority and prepare for the worst, so we aren’t caught off guard when we need it.”
Philadelphia City Council Member Helen Gym, who has been an outspoken voice in efforts to save Hahnemann and prevent similar financial mismanagement in the future, called last week for the city to acquire Hahnemann through eminent domain. “We cannot allow unconscionable greed to get in the way of saving lives,” Gym tweeted last week. Kenney said the city had determined that proposal to be too costly and time consuming.
“It is outrageous that a Philadelphia real estate investor who closed a hospital is now trying to gouge the city to re-open it,” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted Monday. “@HelenGymPHL is right: the city should reopen Hahnemann hospital immediately.” In July, Sanders joined a demonstration protesting Hahnemann’s closing.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native whose campaign headquarters is in Philadelphia, has not taken a position on the issue. Biden’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Days after Kenney announced the city was ending attempts to use the hospital, Freedman’s Rittenhouse Square-area residence was vandalized with the phrases “JOEL KILLS,” and “FREE HAHNEMANN.”
At least “many of the hospitals owned by private equity are in very bad shape,” Appelbaum said. “I imagine we’re gonna see a lot more of what just happened with Hahnemann, and what just happened at Easton.”


theintercept--2020-03-31--Mehdi Hasan, Alice Speri, and Alleen Brown on Coronavirus, Italy, and the Amazon-Whole Foods Strike

Wait !
Before you go on about your day , ask yourself : How likely is it that the story @ @ @ @ @ been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadn ’ t done it @ @ @ @ @ of media would look like without The Intercept .
Who would hold party elites accountable @ @ @ @ @ to have ?
How many covert wars , miscarriages of justice , and dystopian technologies @ @ @ @ @ reporters weren ’ t on the beat ?
The kind of reporting we do is @ @ @ @ @ it is not easy , cheap , or profitable .
The Intercept is an independent @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have ads , so we depend on our members — 35,000 and @ @ @ @ @ hold the powerful to account .
Joining is simple and doesn ’ t need to @ @ @ @ @ can become a sustaining member for as little as $ 3 or $ 5 a @ @ @ @ @ all it takes to support the journalism you rely on .

The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan speaks with reporter Alice Speri about the coronavirus and the social safety net in Italy versus in the United States. He also talks with reporter Alleen Brown about the conditions for Amazon and Whole Foods delivery workers.


theintercept--2020-03-31--Rikers Island Prisoners Are Being Offered PPE and $6 an Hour to Dig Mass Graves

is offering prisoners at Rikers Island jail $ 6 per hour — a fortune by prison labor standards — and personal protective equipment if they agree to help dig mass graves on Hart Island , according to sources with knowledge of the offer .
Avery Cohen , a spokesperson for the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the general arrangement , but said that it was not “ Covid-specific , ” noting that prisoners have been digging graves on Hart Island for years .
The offer is only being made to those with convictions , not those jailed before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A memo sent to prisoners , according to a source who reviewed it , does not specify what the work on Hart Island will be , but the reference to PPE leaves little doubt .
The offer comes as New York City continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States , with 38,000 people infected and more than 914 dead so far .
New York City owns and operates a public cemetery on Hart Island , which has long been maintained by prison labor .
The island @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a surge of bodies in the event of a pandemic by a 2008 report put together by the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner .
Hart Island , though , “ has limited burial space , ” the report noted , and “ may not be able to accommodate a large influx of decedents requiring burial , ” which the preparedness plan estimated at between 50,000 and 200,000 in a pandemic with a mortality rate of 2 percent in which 25 to 35 percent of the population is infected .
The city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ temporary mass internment method , ” which places caskets 10 in a row , head to foot , so as not to stack them on top of each other .
Hart Island is located off City Island in the Bronx .
In 2008 , Rikers prisoners were burying roughly 20 to 25 bodies per week there , the report found .
Prisoners may be safer in the fresh air of Hart Island , digging mass graves while wearing PPE , than sitting back in the unfolding human rights catastrophe that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has become widely infected with coronavirus .
Prisoners who are involved in burials are routinely provided with PPE , Cohen said .
Justine Olderman , executive director of Bronx Defenders , a public defender organization , recently described the conditions at Rikers to The Intercept : “ You have a situation where all the protocols that are coming out of the Centers for Disease Control can not be enacted : There are broken sinks , there ’ s no hand sanitizer , people don ’ t have access to soap , and at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked to do social distancing , you have an environment where people are sleeping 100 to a room.
” City and state officials have badly mishandled the response to the pandemic at the jail , which houses roughly 4,600 people and has an infection rate of 3.6 percent , according to data compiled by the Legal Aid Society .
New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo recently said he would put state prisoners to work making hand sanitizer , though it was later reported that they are bottling and labeling hand sanitizer made by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves .

New York City is offering prisoners at Rikers Island jail $6 per hour — a fortune by prison labor standards — and personal protective equipment if they agree to help dig mass graves on Hart Island, according to sources with knowledge of the offer. Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the general arrangement, but said that it was not “Covid-specific,” noting that prisoners have been digging graves on Hart Island for years.
The offer is only being made to those with convictions, not those jailed before trial, as is generally the case. A memo sent to prisoners, according to a source who reviewed it, does not specify what the work on Hart Island will be, but the reference to PPE leaves little doubt. The offer comes as New York City continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, with 38,000 people infected and more than 914 dead so far. New York City owns and operates a public cemetery on Hart Island, which has long been maintained by prison labor. The island was identified as a potential resting place for a surge of bodies in the event of a pandemic by a 2008 report put together by the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
Hart Island, though, “has limited burial space,” the report noted, and “may not be able to accommodate a large influx of decedents requiring burial,” which the preparedness plan estimated at between 50,000 and 200,000 in a pandemic with a mortality rate of 2 percent in which 25 to 35 percent of the population is infected.
The city document proposed employing the Department of Defense’s “temporary mass internment method,” which places caskets 10 in a row, head to foot, so as not to stack them on top of each other. Hart Island is located off City Island in the Bronx. In 2008, Rikers prisoners were burying roughly 20 to 25 bodies per week there, the report found.
Prisoners may be safer in the fresh air of Hart Island, digging mass graves while wearing PPE, than sitting back in the unfolding human rights catastrophe that is Rikers, an overcrowded cesspool that has become widely infected with coronavirus. Prisoners who are involved in burials are routinely provided with PPE, Cohen said.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Justine Olderman, executive director of Bronx Defenders, a public defender organization, recently described the conditions at Rikers to The Intercept: “You have a situation where all the protocols that are coming out of the Centers for Disease Control cannot be enacted: There are broken sinks, there’s no hand sanitizer, people don’t have access to soap, and at a time we’re all being asked to do social distancing, you have an environment where people are sleeping 100 to a room.”
City and state officials have badly mishandled the response to the pandemic at the jail, which houses roughly 4,600 people and has an infection rate of 3.6 percent, according to data compiled by the Legal Aid Society.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said he would put state prisoners to work making hand sanitizer, though it was later reported that they are bottling and labeling hand sanitizer made by an outside vendor, not making it themselves.


theintercept--2020-04-02--Is Donald Trump Criminally Responsible for Coronavirus Deaths?

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Deaths from Covid-19 continued to mount this week as the U.S. surpassed 200,000 confirmed cases, more than any other country in the world. Experts increasingly point to President Donald Trump’s willful negligence as a primary cause of the pandemic’s intensity, but MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirscher takes things a step further, arguing controversially that Trump could be legally liable for coronavirus deaths after he leaves office. He makes the case to Mehdi Hasan on this week’s podcast.
Glenn Kirschner: I actually think he will see charges brought in each jurisdiction in which people have died as a result of his gross negligence. So I have a feeling that he has got a lot of criminal legal exposure coming at him beginning in January 2021.
[Music interlude.]
Mehdi Hasan: Welcome to Deconstructed, I’m Mehdi Hasan. Broadcasting once again from home, because of the coronavirus of course. I hope you’re all staying safe and indoors because our lives are literally at stake.
GK: He acted in a grossly negligent way, and he failed to act. And that failure was a product of gross negligence. He hit the homicide bonanza.
MH: That’s my guest today, Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor with 30 years of trial experience who’s upset many on the right with this very provocative suggestion of his: that Trump could be prosecuted for negligent homicide.
But aside from triggering the MAGA snowflakes, is he right? Could the president really one day be prosecuted, put on trial for his role in exacerbating and worsening this deadly crisis?
Newscaster: New projections indicating that without drastic action, the United States could face a catastrophic loss of life from coronavirus, a death toll topping one million.
Newscaster: President Trump says he’s considering putting New York and two other states under quarantine to slow the spread.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro: The United States is now the center of a global pandemic. Cases of the coronavirus are rising exponentially.
MH: The number of deaths in the United States has now topped 4,000 – that’s more than the number of Americans killed on 9/11, on George W. Bush’s watch, and more than the number of Americans killed in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was of course on Donald Trump’s watch.
Now let’s be clear: President Trump is not responsible for the existence, or the deadliness, of the coronavirus. He is however responsible for the catastrophically botched response to the spread of the virus inside of these United States since January.
Many experts believe that the number of deaths we’re seeing, and the rapid spread of the disease caused by the coronavirus, Covid-19, which is now fast approaching 200,000 confirmed U.S. cases, the highest number on the planet, is a result of Trump’s willful negligence; that this president has American blood on his hands.
I mean, just listen to an exchange I had with a Harvard epidemiologist, Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, on my Al Jazeera English show, UpFront, just a few weeks ago:
MH: When you look at whether as Prime Minister Boris Johnson say, well, maybe we should let it go through. I’ve shaken lots of hands or Donald Trump playing golf saying I don’t need to get tested and my opponents are treating, it’s a new hoax from my opponents. Do these people potentially have blood on their hands?
Eric Feigl-Ding: I think so.
MH: People are dying because of their negligence.
EFD: Because Boris Johnson’s own health minister already came down with Covid-19. The fact that you’re neglecting the testing and U.S. had frozen testing for two and a half weeks. That is almost three-fold higher multiplication in terms of cases —
MH: Can we say at this point that there are people dead who might be alive had the governments handled it differently over the last six weeks?
EFD: I am pretty confident that is the case.
MH: Of course, some more cautious figures don’t agree with this, or at least don’t want to say so in public. Take the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee this past weekend:
Chuck Todd: Do you think there is blood on the president’s hands considering the slow response or is that too harsh of a criticism?
Joe Biden: I think that’s a little too harsh.
MH: Oh Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. Pulling his punches there again. But look discussing Joe Biden’s bad judgement or his failure to stand up to the Republican right is a topic for another show.
I want to talk today about something much more urgent: the threat that Trump poses, continues to pose, to the lives of people in this country. Right now. As I speak. The blood that continues to be on his hands every day, as more and more Americans contract the virus and die from it.
Don’t be fooled by the change of tone which we heard at his daily political rally, sorry his daily White House press briefing, on Tuesday, where he very somberly and soberly talked about how bad the coming weeks will be, and held up charts showing the death toll could hit 240,000, even if the social distancing measures that he himself wanted to lift until the other day, even if they were to stay in place.
What Trump’s been doing this past week, pretending to take things seriously with his blasé talk of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. — more than double the American death toll in the Vietnam War, almost half as many Americans who died in World War II — and saying , ‘Well, that’s better than the 2.2 million deaths we would have had if I did nothing,” all of that is simply him moving the goalposts, trying to make you forget that just a week ago he wanted churches open and packed for Easter, he wanted people back at work, and he was still comparing the impact of the coronavirus to the flu:
Donald J. Trump: We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off every year.
MH: And yet here he was on Tuesday evening:
DJT: A lot of people have said, a lot of people have thought about, ‘Ride it out. Don’t do anything, just ride it out and think of it as the flu.’ But it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.
MH: Don’t be gaslit by this president. Remember: no matter the lies, the facts are the facts. The reason he has blood on his hands, the reason the US is looking at such a crazy high death toll right now, even with social distancing measures in place and testing ramped up, is because of him: his negligence, his incompetence, his conspiracy theories and denialism and coronavirus trutherism; his deliberate willful wasting of the months of January, February and half of March.
Never forget: South Korea and the United States had their first confirmed COVID-19 case on the same day back in January. South Korea took the threat seriously and by the start of March had tested 100,000 people for the virus. The United States under Trump didn’t take it seriously and had tested just 1,000 people by the start of March.
The South Koreans tried to flatten the curve; Trump went off to play golf and hold rallies with his base; he ignored warnings from his intelligence agencies and top scientists and health officials, and when he did publicly comment on the coronavirus it was to tell us that it was all under control. It was locked down. It was contained. It was going to disappear miraculously. It was one guy from China. It was such a small, tiny, irrelevant issue, which had been turned into a political hoax, he said, by the Democrats.
In fact, on February 27th, just over a month ago, he said this:
DJT: When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.
MH: Now he says 100,000 American deaths wouldn’t just be fine with him, they’d actually be evidence of his success. His success!
DJT: You’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this. And so, if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — that’s a horrible number — maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000, we all together have done a very good job.
MH: A very good job! Kill me now. Even Dr. Antony Fauci, his top scientific expert on the coronavirus, even he kinda semi-admitted at the briefing on Tuesday that fewer Americans might be dead right now if Trump had taken things seriously back in January and done the testing that was needed:
Jim Acosta: What would the models have looked like that Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci shows if we had started the social distancing guidelines sooner in February or January? I don’t mean to put you on the spot.
Deborah Birx: Yeah, we understand that we can’t answer until we see that —
JA: If we had started this sooner, we might not have 100,000 to 200,000 Americans dying.
Anthony Fauci: If there was no virus in the background, there was nothing to mitigate. If there was virus there that we didn’t know about, then the answer to your question is probably yes.
MH: Fauci later said he was worried about that answer of his being taken out of context — but of course he’s also clearly worried about being fired by President Trump!
Look: You have a narcissistic, egomaniacal, megalomaniacal, amoral, compassion-free, soulless, self-obsessed pretend-president, who from the very beginning put his own personal and political interests above the welfare of the nation he’s supposed to be leading; over and above protecting American lives as his job description demands.
I mean, just listen to Trump, he says it all out in the open. He says the quiet part loud. Why didn’t he want to let sick Americans off of the Grand Princess cruise ship?
DJT: Because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.
MH: Why didn’t he get urgent resources — masks, gowns, ventilators — to the governors of struggling states like Washington and Michigan?
DJT: I say, Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. You’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. It doesn’t make any difference what happens.
Reporter: The governor of Washington?
DJT: You know what I say, if they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.
MH: He’s literally letting Americans die, because of his ego and especially Americans, by the way, in blue states, in states that didn’t vote for him. It’s beyond sociopathic.
And of course he has form on this, Trump has a track record of letting Americans in places he doesn’t care about die. Remember Puerto Rico, 3,000 Americans dead because of his incompetence and ignorance:
DJT: The response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this. This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.
MH: And because of comments like this:
DJT: I hate to tell you Puerto Rico but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico.
MH: And because he tried to divert essential humanitarian aid money away from Puerto Rico and towards red states like Texas and Florida instead. When it comes to the coronavirus, he’s doing it all again just on a nationwide level. Florida gets all the supplies it needs, New York doesn’t. And just a few days ago, he was even suggesting that nurses in New York were stealing all the face masks from the hospitals!
DJT: Something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the backdoor?
MH: So it’s clear there is a moral and political case against this president’s deliberate and shameful and cruel mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, but could you, could you, make a legal case, a criminal case, against this behavior? Because no one with a brain, with two eyes and two ears could deny the evidence in front of us that Trump has been negligent in terms of his response to this pandemic – the question I want to ask is has he been criminally negligent and should he, could he, be punished for that negligence?
[Music interlude.]
MH: My guest today is a very senior lawyer who says he very well could be. And he’s someone who’s a bit of an expert too in this particular field. Glenn Kirschner is a former federal prosecutor with three decades of trial experience. He served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia for 24 years, rising to the position of Chief of the Homicide Section, in which capacity he prosecuted more than 50 murder trials, and oversaw all homicide grand jury investigations and prosecutions in Washington, D.C.
He’s now retired, he teaches, and he’s a regular commentator on cable news. And he joins me now.
Glenn, thanks for coming on Deconstructed.
GK: Thanks for having me, Mehdi.
MH: You attracted a lot of right wing attention and hate a couple of weeks ago when you did a Twitter thread, which began and I quote, “Can we talk about one of the few topics I may actually know too much about homicide, specifically, whether Donald Trump may have criminal exposure for some level of negligent homicide or voluntary/involuntary manslaughter for the way he’s mishandled the coronavirus crisis?” Glenn, walk us through what is a pretty controversial legal argument you seem to be making. And these crimes you mentioned to negligent homicide, voluntary/involuntary manslaughter that may or may not apply to Donald Trump.
GK: Sure, and if you know anything about me, you’ll know that rarely do I claim to know too much about any topic. However, after 30 years as a federal prosecutor first as an army JAG and then as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. working for the Department of Justice, and then 22 of those 30 years, I handled murder cases in Washington, D.C. in both federal and in local court. So murder is one of those things that I’ve been immersed in for a couple of decades. So let me, I’m not going to talk about first degree premeditated murder or second degree depraved heart murder, or frankly, voluntary manslaughter. I want to talk about the crime that I think squarely fits Donald Trump’s conduct, and is a relatively low level of homicide. It’s involuntary manslaughter.
There are three things, what we call elements —elements is just a fancy word for facts that we have to prove in order to hold somebody accountable for involuntary manslaughter. One, that a person acted in a grossly negligent way or importantly for our purposes, failed to act and that failure was a product of gross negligence and I’ll talk about those two things in a minute. But number one, somebody acted in a grossly negligent way. Number two, their conduct was reasonably likely to involve serious bodily injury or death to another as a product of that grossly negligent act or failure to act. And three, that they thereby caused the death of another.
Now, causation is tricky, because when we think of someone causing the death of another we think about someone firing a gun at someone, someone stabbing another person, someone strangling another person. But, you know, that is not the way the law, criminal law or the law of homicide defines causation. Causation in the law is defined as conduct that is a substantial factor in bringing about the death of another and I think, undeniably Donald Trump’s conduct of lying to the American people and downplaying the risk, giving them information that they then use to make their everyday behavioral decisions that put them in harm’s way that enhanced their chances of contracting this virus. That was a substantial factor in infecting and ultimately killing people.
So, and let me talk a little bit for a minute about how he also failed to act and how his failure to act was gross negligence. So this is one of the — and I prosecuted a lot of murder cases in my day. This is one of the unusual circumstances where a perpetrator actually fulfills both theories of liability because he acted in a grossly negligent way and he failed to act and that failure was a product of gross negligence. You only have to prove one or another. He hit the homicide bonanza. He actually committed involuntary manslaughter in both of those ways.
MH: So you also said in your Twitter thread that it’s not an easy question to, you know, make this kind of decision and make this kind of case. And it isn’t clearly, I talked to a couple of other retired federal prosecutors off the record before we came on air. And I put your arguments to them just to get a sense of what others think in your field and they said they sympathize with you. But they were skeptical about the case you’re making one of them said to me, and I quote, “If you’re seriously talking about prosecution, the real issue here will be one of causation. You’d have to line up causation for each individual death you wanted to indict for. There’s no group crime here.” Another told me, “A prosecutor would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump’s action or inaction actually caused someone’s death. And I just don’t see how one could do that here. Maybe there’s a civil suit, but not a criminal prosecution.” What’s your response to both of those criticisms?
GK: That’s the beauty of our criminal justice system. We have people who make these decisions. In the first instance it is the judge as the gatekeeper. Please, if somebody would only give me the opportunity to investigate these deaths in the grand jury to prove that some of them are a product of Donald Trump’s gross negligence, I will ask a grand jury to indict. The grand jury is the first gatekeeper. I predict based on what I have seen in the public reporting alone, even before I begin to dig into family history and medical records, I predict the grand jury would indict. The next gatekeeper is the judge and trust me, Mehdi, if I brought a case. And it was not on sound legal footing, a judge is going to dismiss it.
And I have, you know what? I’ve lost cases before in my 30 years, but I was always fighting for justice for the victims and for the safety of the community. And I fear no loss as long as we think we’re doing the right thing based on the evidence. So the judge will be the next gatekeeper and the final and perhaps the most important gatekeeper, it is that jury of one’s peers, it’s citizens who will sit in judgment of whether Donald Trump acted in a grossly negligent manner. And whether his gross negligence in acting or failing to act was a substantial factor in bringing about deaths. I will take that to a jury seven days a week.
MH: But what about the argument that says, look, it’s beyond reasonable doubt, you know that, you’re former criminal prosecutor, maybe there’s a civil suit here, but not a criminal prosecution? Because how do you link Trump beyond reasonable doubt, to an individual death and you can’t do it to a group of people. It has to be each and every person as you said digging into their circumstances and records?
GK: Sure, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was a substantial factor not that it was —
MH: The only factor.
GK: The cause, the main cause, but it was just a substantial factor. Let me use an analogy. So people may be familiar with the horrific Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, California in 2016. Two guys owned and operated a converted warehouse. They turned it into an artist’s space where the artists could work. They could display their artwork. Some of them were sleeping there. But it was in pretty horrible shape. It didn’t meet any safety codes. And as a result, the fire started. So that fire resulted in 36, I believe, or maybe 39 people dying in the fire.
Now, the fire was not a product of arson. The owners of the Ghost Ship warehouse did nothing to personally kill those people. They didn’t start the fire. They didn’t close the doors so that they couldn’t flee the flames. However, their conduct of having this warehouse in a condition where it was putting people at risk was a substantial factor in bringing about the death. They were, I think, indicted for 36 or 39 counts of involuntary manslaughter. It’s a similar principle where Trump has let this virus run roughshod not unlike a fire running through a rickety warehouse, run roughshod through our country. And you also have examples of his corrupt intent, of his motive because he has said things publicly.
MH: He has said on the record, you know, I don’t want these tests to be done, because I like the numbers where they are.
GK: Exactly, I want my numbers to stay low. He has said don’t return the phone calls of the governors of Washington and Michigan. They’re not being sufficiently nice to us. There’s a lot to unravel. And that’s what criminal investigations are for. But if we don’t at least take the first step on the road to investigate what I believe is criminal conduct then we are lost.
MH: Is there any precedent for something like this Glenn, that you know of in U.S. presidential history or even at lower levels of government, state or municipal levels where elected officials are held to account criminally in this way?
GK: Yeah, I can’t speak to every jurisdiction. I will say, let’s assume there is certainly no precedent to try a criminal president for these kind of crimes once he leaves office. We know we can’t do it while he’s in office because of this horrific Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memo that says you cannot indict a sitting president, a criminal president, even if he shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue. That’s a position that was expressly taken by Department of Justice lawyers in a Second Circuit Court of Appeals argument. But let’s assume there’s no precedent, the only way we make precedent Mehdi is by doing something the first time by taking a maiden voyage. If we were always required to wait to prosecute a novel case until there was precedent, guess what? We would never prosecute a novel case. That only makes sense, right?
MH: And if anyone is a novel case, it’s Donald J. Trump. And what about this distinction between state and federal law? That these crimes would be state crimes, and therefore he’s more susceptible to it. Is that what you believe?
GK: Yeah, I actually think he will see charges brought and civil suits brought frankly not only federally but in each jurisdiction in which people have died as a result of his gross negligence. So every state has its own state law defining things like involuntary manslaughter and some jurisdictions call it negligent homicide. There are slightly different elements and every jurisdiction defines it in its own way.
Here’s what will happen when state charges are brought against him — and I predict they will be when he leaves office — they will make a modified Supremacy Clause argument. They’ll say, even though the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution doesn’t directly apply, they will say, “Listen, this is a federal matter and a former president cannot be made to stand up as a defendant in 50 states and defend himself in all of these criminal cases.” So there will be a modified Supremacy Clause argument made. I can’t predict how each state jurisdiction will resolve that issue. But I have a feeling that he has got a lot of criminal legal exposure coming at him beginning in January 2021.
MH: So, I’ll come back to that in a moment. Just in terms of the actual, we talked about precedence one slightly different though related precedent that I just came across from last week, Glenn, was the utility company PG&E, which just accepted criminal responsibility for starting the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, the Camp fire of 2018, which killed 85 people. But though the company pled guilty to manslaughter, none of the executives were prosecuted or jailed for that crime. PG&E just agreed to pay a 3.5 million dollar penalty, which is the statutory maximum. Isn’t that the problem that you can go after a corporation, individuals on this on these crimes, you mentioned, much tougher?
GK: Much tougher indeed, especially when there is collective criminal action by, for example, a board of directors. And let me tell you, Mehdi, I’ve been in the federal government long enough, a little over 30 years, the federal government is often looking to recover money. Even if they could sort of if they wanted to stretch their criminal law muscles, they could try to put some of these white collar corporate wrongdoers in prison, or narrowly they let them get away with a little something as long as they’re willing to fill the government’s coffers with money and that is a sad fact of our criminal justice system. But I think you have a point person in this instance and it is Donald Trump. So I do think that the criminal justice systems plural need to focus like a laser beam on him once he leaves office.
MH: So you have the point person Donald J. Trump, Republican President of the United States. So there’s a big partisan angle, Glenn. What would you say to critics who say once you open this very controversial, unprecedented legal door, it’ll be used against other presidents by Republicans against Democrats?
GK: Sure.
MH: They’ll say Barack Obama should have been prosecuted for U.S. deaths in Benghazi or Eric Holder, then Attorney General for the deaths that resulted from the fast and furious gun walking scandal in Arizona and beyond. A future Democratic president who presides over natural disasters, he’ll get prosecuted too.
GK: So yes, there is something called victor’s justice. And that’s a pejorative term, right? It just, loosely defined, means when the party that comes into power prosecutes the party that has lost power just for the sheer revenge value for the partisan value of it. It’s not victor’s justice if you have crimes being committed, that the party in power is unwilling to address while they are in power.
Here’s an example that I’ve used before. Let’s assume that somebody commits a bank robbery. That is a federal offense. So let’s assume that the person who commits bank robbery is a really good friend and a high-dollar donor of Donald Trump. So Bill Barr, the sitting Attorney General, being Donald Trump’s protector says I am not authorizing federal charges to be brought against that bank robber because he’s a high-dollar donor of Donald Trump’s. Would it be improper for the next administration to prosecute that bank robber when he is no longer being protected by Bill Barr?
That’s not revenge. That’s not partisanship or victor’s justice, it’s just plain old justice. It’s doing the right thing. And we can’t decline to do the right thing for fear of how the wrong people will criticize us for it.
MH: But you would accept that a Democratic president who presided over a natural disaster in a similar way could be prosecuted?
GK: If crimes are committed while a Democratic president or a Republican president are in office, and the party in power refuses to address it in a timely manner. That doesn’t mean you give the president or the ex-president a pass once power changes hands because that is how we went from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump and God help us if we don’t wrestle Donald Trump’s criminality to the ground and hold people accountable because we’re going to get something 10 times worse than Donald Trump next time.
MH: And you mentioned Trump’s criminality. You’ve also talked in the past about prosecuting Trump for all his other crimes committed in office once he leaves office because as you say, there’s this horrific DOJ guidance that says you can’t indict a sitting president. You’ve talked about a Trump Crimes Commission that should be set up in January 2021 if he’s out of office then. How would that commission even work? And what other crimes are you referring to? Because I know we’ve discussed a few of them on this show over the past couple of years.
GK: Sure. I mean, first of all, you have to set it up to the extent you can find non-partisan people, people who are hopeful — I know, hopefully, retired prosecutors, retired FBI agents. I mean, we have so many great law enforcement agencies to draw from, former you know, FBI, ATF, DEA, Park Police, Capitol Police, Secret Service Uniformed Division, you know, it goes on and on and on. The crimes that have been committed that I see kind of hiding in plain sight: you’ve got conspiracy to defraud the U.S. You’ve got obstructing justice. You’ve got obstructing Congress. These are all separate statutory crimes. I can rattle off the numbers but it probably wouldn’t be all that interesting or helpful.
You’ve got tampering with a witness. We saw a tweet in real time while Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was testifying, he was tweeting and let me tell you as a career prosecutor, when you’re tweeting and you’re trying to chill the ongoing testimony of a witness, it is tampering with a witness under 18 USC 1512. There’s no two ways about it. He bribed President Zelensky. He committed campaign finance violations with Michael Cohen. He made false statements to the FBI as part of the Mueller probe. He has been an accessory after the fact to, of all people, Vladimir Putin by standing up in Helsinki and giving him aid and comfort. That is the crime of accessory after the fact under 18 USC, Section Three, and I could go on but we probably don’t have enough time.
MH: Yeah, there’s so many things to do with kind of trying to extort Amazon and using the U.S. Postal Service against them and also many campaign finance violations, Stormy Daniels. We know there is a long list that we’ve discussed on this show before. One thing I would say is that you said earlier in the interview that you’re optimistic that on this crime, this alleged crime of negligent homicide, that he could face some kind of indictment, charges from the states, from different jurisdictions. I’m not so optimistic myself. For a start, you mentioned the Trump Crimes Commission and drawing from the FBI. Come on, Glenn, Robert Mueller was a Republican former head of the FBI and they didn’t take him seriously. They discredited and demonized him very quickly and have never ever taken anything he said, seriously. So I’m not sure that you can find the people that anyone’s going to take seriously on the Republican side.
And then I think the Democrats just don’t have the backbone for this. Because right now you’re talking about, you know, the extreme position of prosecuting Trump for a crime. Meanwhile, Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, aides of his are briefing journalists that they don’t think this is the right time to even criticize Trump, to attack him. They think the country needs to get behind the president. I mean, I just think it’s mad right now that you know, here you are making a very good case for why he could be criminally responsible for Americans dying and yet members of the opposition party aren’t saying anything even close to that.
GK: Yeah, I share your skepticism and your pessimism. And I hope that my optimism doesn’t become Pollyanna-ism. There’s a lot of isms going on there. When you look at the Mueller report, it is expressly a blueprint for future prosecutions. Now, we had one sort of quasi-prosecution which was the Senate impeachment trial, which was not based on the evidence. That was based on politics. But you know, it is a blueprint for a future prosecution for the many counts of obstruction of justice that are documented in volume two of Mueller’s report. Now, we all have yet to see the full unredacted Mueller report.
But we are one giant step closer to that because in recent days, Judge Reggie Walton who was a lion of the federal district court here in Washington D.C. now has a copy of the unredacted Mueller report that he figuratively had to wrestle out of Bill Barr’s hands after publishing an opinion that said, and I quote, “Bill Barr lacks candor, and he tried to spin the findings and conclusions of the Mueller report, and he dubiously handled the release of the Mueller report and he has been directly contradicted by the Mueller report.”
It was a scathing legal opinion authored by Judge Reggie Walton. He now has the unredacted Mueller report and he is making decisions about what should be released to we the people. It’s a FOIA suit. It will first be released, BuzzFeed and EPIC, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and then hopefully we the people will see what’s under all of those redactions, those black bars in the Mueller report. That will have evidence that can be used come January 2022 to investigate and if the evidence supports it, prosecute Donald Trump.
MH: Just before we finish, Glenn, you upset a lot of people when you tweeted out about Trump and negligent homicide by daring to link the president to such a serious crime. I believe you even got death threats from MAGA people, from Trump supporters online. Were you surprised by that? Does it bother you?
GK: OK, was I surprised by it? You know, I was somewhat surprised because I have tweeted out that he’s committed lots and lots and lots of crimes. And nobody seemed to be all that bothered by it. But when I had the temerity to suggest that his conduct actually fulfills the elements, the legal elements of involuntary manslaughter, I got a whole bunch of death threats. Now, I was followed by an actual hitman when I was trying RICO cases in the District of Columbia so you know, bring it on my friends. But yes, I was a little surprised that they seemed to sit up and take note and be offended by that, whereas they weren’t offended by the fact that he had obstructed justice, obstructed Congress, engaged in campaign finance violations, bribery of President Zelensky etc. I’m not sure why I offended the MAGA sensibilities saying that he also has committed involuntary manslaughter.
MH: I love by the way, I love the irony of people saying “How dare you accuse my president of trying to kill people? I’m gonna kill you for saying that.” But anyways, let’s not try and reason too much with the irrational.
GK: Yes, yes, the irony is lost on some people.
MH: Glenn, thanks so much for boldly making the case and do stay safe in these crazy times. Thanks for coming on Deconstructed.
GK: Thank you, Mehdi. I appreciate it.
MH: That was Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor in Washington D.C., former head of the D.C. homicide section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, making the case that Trump can be criminally prosecuted for coronavirus-related deaths in the United States. Do you agree with him? I do, but I’m no lawyer and I have no faith in the Democrats or in prosecutors to make the case for his prosecution come January 2021 — assuming he’s even out of power then, and with Joe Biden as his opponent, there’s a very good chance he could get re-elected for a second term. God help us all.
The thing is, whether we’re lawyers or not, I think we can all agree that at some point Trump needs to be held to account for his many crimes and abuses of power, in some shape or form, especially now when people are dying as a result of his clear negligence, whether it’s criminal or not. I hope and pray that the death toll doesn’t hit the quarter of a million mark that the White House was suggesting it might earlier this week, though even tens of thousands of deaths are crazy excessive, hugely tragic and many of them could have been avoided.
So, we all need to do our part, at least, stay indoors, do social distancing, wash your hands, help flatten the curve. Good luck.
[Music interlude.]
MH: That’s our show. We’ll be taking a break next week but will be back in two weeks time.
Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept. Our producer is Zach Young. The show was mixed by Bryan Pugh. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. Betsy Reed is The Intercept’s editor in chief.
And I’m Mehdi Hasan. You can follow me on Twitter @mehdirhasan. If you haven’t already, please do subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. Go to theintercept.com/deconstructed to subscribe from your podcast platform of choice, iPhone, Android, whatever it is. If you’re subscribed already, please do leave us a rating or review – it helps new people find the show. And if you want to give us feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com. Thanks so much for listening. See you back here in a couple of weeks.