Senate Democrats Demand Details on Amy Coney Barrett ‘Super-Spreader’ Announcement at White House
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Senate Democrats on Tuesday demanded details from the White House on how it is addressing the fallout from last week’s Rose Garden announcement with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, calling it a “super-spreader event” that led to an outbreak of the coronavirus and President Donald Trump’s hospitalization.
“Despite the risk to those who may have been exposed, the White House has conducted itself in a secretive manner and shown a complete lack of regard for public health and safety,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote in the letter, which was cosigned by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and addressed to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “Critical information about the health of the president and his associates appears to have been deliberately withheld in order to minimize public scrutiny and awareness, and it is still unclear when the president or his advisers first knew there was an outbreak.”
The White House introduced Barrett, a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, as the president’s Supreme Court nominee at a Sept. 26 event in the Rose Garden. More than 10 people who attended the outdoor event contracted the coronavirus in subsequent days, though it isn’t clear whether there was a connection. President Donald Trump announced Friday morning that he and First Lady Melania Trump had been diagnosed with the virus, just hours after reports White House aide Hope Hicks had tested positive, leading observers to believe the outbreak originated with Hicks.
Four White House communication staffers tested positive for the coronavirus as of Tuesday afternoon, including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, as well as at least four reporters in the White House press corps. Two Republican senators, Mike Lee (UT) and Thom Tillis (NC), announced they contracted the virus shortly after attending the Rose Garden event. A third member, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), caught the virus despite being absent from it.
Schumer and Murray said they wanted to know whether the White House was doing anything to track those who have been infected.
“There have been disturbing reports that minimal, if any, contact tracing has been conducted and few, if any, public health measures have been put in place to contain the spread of the disease,” the duo wrote. “General guidance to not come to work if symptomatic was reportedly provide to those working in the complex, but this guidance apparently did not address the risk of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic transmission.”
The two said they were requesting information “regarding the timeline of the outbreak and guidance to any and all individuals working within the White House complex, including additional information on testing, quarantine and isolation, and the use of masks on White House grounds.”
“Even with reports that White House housekeeping staff and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany have tested positive, the lack of clear guidance or decisive action has continued,” they added. “The opaque and secretive handling of information related to these events constitutes an obvious threat to public health and is unacceptable in a free nation whose elected leaders must be transparent with and accountable to the American people.”
