COMMENTARY (Victoria, 2020-03-27)
Here is a quick excerpt from my raw buried_truth.txt file. References to "notes" are UID placemarkers in that raw file (with additional detail).
Disclaimer: here (and elsewhere on my site) I merely state my personal opinion, based on published reports. Read, research, and form your own -- independent -- conclusions.
Chinese physician and coronavirus [COVID-19 | SARS-CoV-2] whistleblower Li Wenliang warned colleagues on social media in late December 2019 about a mysterious virus that would lead to the coronavirus epidemic. It appears that U.S. intelligence and advisory bodies were monitoring and evaluating this outbreak and notifying persons of influence, before knowledge of the severity and societal and economic costs of this outbreak were finally acknowledged.
As shown in the following graphic, Senators Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler -- who had access to privileged information at a time when governmental officials were publicly downplaying the risks posed by COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) -- sold sizable quantities of assets in January and February 2020. While more information on these transactions may be subsequently revealed, at present it seems plausible that this intelligence was used by many individuals for personal gain.
Aside: the apparent wealth of these Senators (and other "public" officials) indicates another issue inherent in political structures: the socioeconomic isolation of those individuals from the vast majority of the populace they are intended to "represent" and serve.
It's also notable that mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos -- who, according to published accounts was in communication with the White House viz-a-viz the emerging coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic [see also note ewieW8pho] -- made a timely sale of a significant portion of his assets at this time.
The recent disclosures that U.S. Senators and other wealthy individuals appeared to coopt U.S. national intelligence for their personal gain magnifies the faults inherent in a capitalist-based, consumer-centric, wealth-loving, structurally violent society.
Despite calls for Senator Burr's resignation -- etc. -- it's likely that no substantive punitive actions toward them will be undertaken. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [see also note sieGif7u] is a toothless regulatory body -- evident from the 2008 financial collapse and countless incidents of corporate malfeasance [see note Izeif7ni in my raw file] -- unwilling or incapable of protecting honest investors.
Insider trading is the illegal, ethically and morally reprehensible, structurally damaging theft of assets owned and shared by honest, law-abiding shareholders. In my opinion the individuals involved in these behaviors should incur the following penalties.
Related: see also the following notes (in my raw file).
note ooZuG8oo : [2020-04-08] Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources. "Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," a source says.
As far back as late November 2019, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China's Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting. Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document's contents.
The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI's work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home. "Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI's report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff and the White House.
From that warning in November 2019, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House. All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President's Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January 2020, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
"The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we're discussing," the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. "But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on."
[2020-04-17] US intel on threat of coronavirus shared with Israel and NATO in November [2019]
note AeCu6che : [2020-04-10] Coronavirus: US officials knew of Wuhan health crisis in November, a second report claims. Repeated warnings made to White House throughout December, says US media
note Yahce2en [provides a comprehensive background and analysis]: [2020-04-11] They saw it coming: Inside the Trump administration's failures on coronavirus
note neih4BaC | see also note Yahce2en : [2020-04-11 | updated 2020-04-13] He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus. An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.
[ ... snip ... ]
THE CHINA FACTOR
The earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration's internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world's two leading powers to a global crisis. It was early January 2020, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled.
Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn't be long before it reached other parts of the world. Mr. Pottinger had worked as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic, and was still scarred by his experience documenting the death spread by that highly contagious virus. Now, seventeen years later, his friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms -- an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted. Mr. Pottinger declined through a spokesman to comment.
It was one of the earliest warnings to the White House, and it echoed the intelligence reports making their way to the National Security Council. While most of the early assessments from the C.I.A. had little more information than was available publicly, some of the more specialized corners of the intelligence world were producing sophisticated and chilling warnings. In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department's epidemiologist wrote in early January 2020 that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.
By mid-January 2020 there was growing evidence of the virus spreading outside China. Mr. Pottinger began convening daily meetings about the coronavirus. He alerted his boss, Robert C. O'Brien, the national security adviser. The early alarms sounded by Mr. Pottinger and other China hawks were freighted with ideology -- including a push to publicly blame China that critics in the administration say was a distraction as the coronavirus spread to Western Europe and eventually the United States.
And they ran into opposition from Mr. Trump's economic advisers, who worried a tough approach toward China could scuttle a trade deal that was a pillar of Mr. Trump's re-election campaign. With his skeptical -- some might even say conspiratorial -- view of China's ruling Communist Party, Mr. Pottinger initially suspected that President Xi Jinping's government was keeping a dark secret: that the virus may have originated in one of the laboratories in Wuhan studying deadly pathogens. In his view, it might have even been a deadly accident unleashed on an unsuspecting Chinese population.
During meetings and telephone calls, Mr. Pottinger asked intelligence agencies -- including officers at the C.I.A. working on Asia and on weapons of mass destruction -- to search for evidence that might bolster his theory. They didn't have any evidence. Intelligence agencies did not detect any alarm inside the Chinese government that analysts presumed would accompany the accidental leak of a deadly virus from a government laboratory. But Mr. Pottinger continued to believe the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese were acknowledging. Inside the West Wing, the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, also tried to sound alarms that the threat from China was growing.
Mr. Pottinger, backed by Mr. O'Brien, became one of the driving forces of a campaign in the final weeks of January to convince Mr. Trump to impose limits on travel from China -- the first substantive step taken to impede the spread of the virus and one that the president has repeatedly cited as evidence that he was on top of the problem. In addition to the opposition from the economic team, Mr. Pottinger and his allies among the China hawks had to overcome initial skepticism from the administration's public health experts.
[ ... snip ... ]
note Xahv6Zoo " [2020-04-10] Canadian military intelligence unit issued warning about Wuhan outbreak back in January. News of the MEDINT unit's work is raising new questions about what the government knew and when
A small, specialized unit within the Canadian military's intelligence branch began producing detailed warnings and analysis about the emergence of the deadly novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China in early January, CBC News has learned. The medical intelligence (MEDINT) cell within Canadian Forces Intelligence Command is tucked away on the edges of the country's security and defence establishment. It has a mandate to track global health trends and contagion outbreaks to predict how they'll affect military operations, but its assessments are heavily influenced by reports from the Five Eyes Intelligence partners, including the U.S. military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI).
For at least one of the country's leading intelligence experts, the fact that the unit was tracking the COVID-19 outbreak and reporting on it raises serious questions about information-sharing within the federal government -- and its possible failure to heed early warning signs. The MEDINT cell monitored the early progress of the outbreak in China and assessed how it could affect ongoing missions.
"We can confirm that CFINTCOM started to report on COVID-19 starting January 2020," Lt. Hrayr Karageozia, a spokesperson for the military intelligence branch, said in an email. The military unit, which is made up of specialists in public health, microbiology, biochemistry, emergency management and clinical medicine, uses open-source data -- including World Health Organization statistics and analyses -- along with classified intelligence from allies. Its use of classified information could be significant in light of reports coming out of Washington this week that the U.S. military's medical intelligence agency was following and reporting on the novel coronavirus as early as last November.
∙ Much more detail here -- note Eiziep7K : [2020-04-07] Documents reveal glimpse into Canada's early COVID-19 plans
note Ni9ahghe : [2020-01-24] Hoeven Statement on Coronavirus Outbreak. Senator Received Briefing from CDC, NIH, Health Leaders on Containing Viral Outbreak Originating in China
note pieFa7ro : [2020-03-20] U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic
note ohd5Te0f : [2020-03-19] [coronavirus | COVID-19] Intelligence Chairman Raised Virus Alarms Weeks Ago, Secret Recording Shows
note woo3ZieV : [2020-03-19] Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness. Intelligence Chair Richard Burr's selloff came around the time he was receiving daily briefings on the health threat
... Burr was one of just three senators who in 2012 opposed the bill that explicitly barred lawmakers and their staff from using nonpublic information for trades and required regular disclosure of those trades. In opposing the bill, Burr argued at the time that insider trading laws already applied to members of Congress. President Barack Obama signed the bill, known as the STOCK Act [see also note ca9Je0sa], that year.
note ewieW8pho :[2020-03-16] Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been in regular contact with the White House on coronavirus pandemic
note vu7Eiw6r : [2020-03-24] Bezos, Other Corporate Executives Sold Shares Just in Time. With the pandemic bearing down on the market, sales by insiders spared them $1.9 billion in paper losses, a Journal analysis shows
note eidahk4T : [2020-04-15] Coronavirus: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos adds $24 Billion to fortune
Amazon CEO and entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos, has grown his vast fortune by a further $24bn so far during the coronavirus pandemic, a roughly 20% increase over the last four months to $138b. Bezos owns an 11% stake in the company and has been the world's richest person since 2017. A surge in demand has driven the business to near peak holiday season levels, with households on virtual lockdown and many millions staying indoors. Amazon's share price rose by 5.3% to reach a record high on Tuesday.
... According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bezos is one of the few billionaires to have seen an increase to his net worth since the beginning of 2020.
note unoorie7 : [2020-03-25] Senate Intel Chief Richard Burr Sued by Wyndham Hotels Investor for 'Illegally Using Nonpublic Information' to Sell $1.7million in Stock Before the Coronavirus Pandemic Hit
... 'Senator Burr owed a duty to Congress, the United States government, and citizens of the United States, including Plaintiff, not to use material nonpublic information that he learned by virtue of his duties as a United States Senator in connection with the sale or purchase of any security,' the lawsuit says. 'Senator Burr breached that duty by selling stock, including Wyndham stock, based on that material nonpublic information.'
... In his role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the senator is privy to much of the nation's classified information on threats to national security. At the time he made the sale, his was still reassuring the American public that the United States was prepared for a coronavirus outbreak.
... The Act precludes lawmakers from using their access to confidential or secret information to guide their investing. Burr was one of two senators who voted against the legislation.
... engaged in insider trading and violated the STOCK act [see also note ca9Je0sa], which prohibits lawmakers from using information they glean on Capitol Hill to buy or sell shares.
... Richard Burr reportedly dumped up to $1.7m (£1.45m) of stocks last month. Kelly Loeffler is reported to have sold holdings worth up to $3m in a series of transactions beginning the same day as a Senate briefing on the virus.
... Under US law, it is illegal for members of Congress to trade based on non-public information gathered during their official duties. Mr Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has also come under fire after US outlet NPR obtained a recording of him warning a group of wealthy constituents last month about the dire economic impact of the coronavirus, at a time when the Trump administration was publicly downplaying the threat. He also told the group to curtail their travel.
... Separately, an investigation by The Daily Beast found Mrs Loeffler, who sits on the Senate Health Committee, and her husband sold millions of dollars in stocks, beginning the day her Senate committee hosted a private, all-senators briefing on coronavirus by administration officials. In the weeks after the sale, she sought to downplay the virus' impact on the economy and public health in a series of tweets.
note feoFu6ox : [2016-09-08] 5 Corporations Now Dominate Our Privatized Intelligence Industry. This unaccountable oligarchy of spies controls the information that guides our military and civilian leaders
[CommonDreams.org, 2020-10-16] Trump Advisers Privately Warned GOP Donors About COVID-19 in February While Telling Public Virus Was "Very Much Under Control." "Apparently, if Americans want to hear the full truth from the Trump administration about the severity of COVID-19, they need to be wealthy and well-connected donors."
[Salon.com, 2020-10-15] Trump administration privately warned wealthy donors while publicly downplaying the coronavirus. The information reportedly helped elite traders "gain financial advantage" when "global markets were teetering."
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