Trump's HHS secretary accidentally tells the truth: Racism is driving pandemic policy\
Alex Azar's comments were hateful — and honest, exposing the racist logic behind the entire Trump movement
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA MAY 19, 2020 SALON
Donald Trump's administration is truly a one-trick pony. Whatever narratives Trump's minions roll out, white supremacy and racism are always the baseline.
During an appearance last Sunday on CNN's "State of the Nation," Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar offered this explanation of why black people and other nonwhites are at such high risk of death from COVID-19:
Unfortunately the American population is a very diverse — it is a population with significant unhealthy co-morbidities that do make many individuals in our communities, in particular African-American, minority communities, particularly at risk here because of significant underlying disease health disparities and disease co-morbidities and that is an unfortunate legacy in our health care system that we need to address.
Azar detailed these "co-morbidities" as primarily meaning obesity, diabetes and hypertension. To state the obvious, the Trump administration has done nothing to address these and other health problems. Moreover, it is actively working to overturn the Affordable Care Act and other programs shown to improve health outcomes for the American people.
The implications of Azar's comments are clear enough, despite the superficial language of concern: Black and brown communities and individuals are somehow responsible for dying at higher rates from the coronavirus pandemic and the nation's "unfortunate" diversity is at least partly to blame. Of course, after making those comments Azar attempted, predictably, to backtrack and deflect.
Here's the shorter version of the secretary's analysis: "Dear black and brown people: COVID-19 is killing so many of you because you are fat and lazy. Deal with the problem yourselves. This is your own fault."
It may be worth observing that the obesity epidemic in America is not limited to black and brown people in urban neighborhoods. Many of Trump's supporters in red-state America suffer from these same "co-morbidities." One must wonder whether Azar will slur them as being fat and lazy, and ultimately responsible for their own severe illness or death from the coronavirus? Does the same victim-blaming logic apply to Donald Trump, a person who appears to be morbidly obese?
The coronavirus pandemic is global. Since the outbreak, it has killed more than 300,000 people and infected almost 5 million others. In the United States, more than 90,000 people have died. Some projections suggest that in June the daily death toll may approach or exceed 3,000 Americans — more people than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, every single day. Scientists warn that no vaccine will likely be available for at least a year, and likely longer. Lives are being ruined. We are on the verge of a second Great Depression, or already in it. The world economy teeters at the edge of the abyss.
Government exists to confront and resolve problems greater than any one person or group of individuals could solve on their own. To blame black and brown people for dying and suffering from the coronavirus pandemic is the kind of moral logic that underpins crimes against humanity.
Alex Azar has no insight or wisdom to offer about the pandemic except to lie and recite programmed talking points intended to exonerate the Trump regime. The ultimate goal of Trump's pandemic death cult is to create a narrative where 150,000 or more deaths are framed as a victory, rather than a cataclysmic failure of presidential leadership and governance – if such words may even be applied to Trump and his cabal.
To explain and decode Azar's comments about "diversity" and black and brown people dying in this pandemic is to see, once again, the unifying logic of Donald Trump's movement and his Republican Party, news media, voters and supporters.
Truth and empirical reality do not matter to today's "conservatives" and other right-wing revanchists. As such, context is also seen as irrelevant because it is the basis for any true understanding of complex events.
Conservatism, especially the type of fake populist right-wing fascism and authoritarianism that Trump and his movement represent, rejects complexity of thought and principle.
Why are black Americans and other nonwhites dying at disproportionately high rates during the coronavirus pandemic, as compared to white people? Social inequality.
For most of the country's history through to the present, black Americans and other nonwhites have been denied access to quality health care. They are also more likely to be uninsured or underinsured. What social psychologists describe as "racial battle fatigue" also makes nonwhites more vulnerable to the coronavirus and other serious illnesses.
Food deserts and environmental racism also contribute to the co-morbidities that make black and brown people more vulnerable to this pandemic — and to many other forms of illness and disease.
Wealth and income disparities as well as the structure of the labor market combine to make nonwhites more likely to die from the coronavirus pandemic.
As a strategy, the Trump administration and the Republican Party have enacted and pursued policies that make these racial disparities much worse and have therefore made the human cost of the coronavirus much higher for nonwhite people.
White supremacy and racism are central to the Trump regime. Trump's political movement is tied together and motivated by racial animus and hostility towards nonwhite people, as well as Muslims and other groups deemed not to be "real Americans."
Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic is a way to channel such values. Dr. Justin Frank, retired George Washington University psychiatrist and author of "Trump on the Couch," explained this to me in a recent email:
Learning that a disproportionate number of black- and brown-skinned people are dying from the virus makes it easier for him to open up the economy, precisely because they wouldn't vote for him, are of no use to him, and are already objects of his malevolence. Just think about the Central Park Five or his derogatory comments about African countries. Donald Trump is his fathers's son, beloved by the Ku Klux Klan.
Azar's comments about "diversity" and the pandemic directly channel white supremacist talking points. For neo-Nazis, the "alt-right" and other white supremacists, "diversity" is a weakness. Diversity is "anti-white," they argue, and as such anti-American.
White supremacists claim that nonwhite immigrants are inherently dirty or criminal, and are vectors for the "white genocide" which is being caused by America's changing racial demographics and globalization. These views are now routinely mainstreamed on Fox News and in other parts of the right-wing echo chamber.
Since the ideology of white supremacy is based on a foundational lie that "white" people" are somehow superior to other groups, claims that "diversity" leads to weaker societies is not true. For one thing, race itself is a social construct with no biological basis; contrary to the fantasies of many right-wing "thinkers," human beings cannot be bred like dogs.
In reality, the particular challenges of "assimilation" or "national identity" often faced by "multiracial" or "diverse" societies result from the angry and paranoid response of white supremacists and other nativists to those people they deem to be undesirable outsiders.
In the United States, that dynamic manifests by how it does not have the robust social democracy and health care system found in many European nations. White Americans and their leaders have historically been more invested in preserving the psychological wages of whiteness than in working together with nonwhite Americans to make a better society that would benefit everyone.
"Big government" is considered to be evil. In reality, "big government" is exactly what is needed to confront a global pandemic. As political scientists and other researchers have shown, the language of "big government" from the 19th century forward has been negatively associated with the idea that black people and other minority groups take money and other resources away from "deserving" white Americans.
The U.S. government has been hollowed out through that logic, leaving it unable to effectively respond to the coronavirus pandemic. This is another example of the various ways in which racism and white supremacy hurt white people.
How will the history of America in the time of Trump's pandemic be written?
Donald Trump's personal fixer, Attorney General William Barr, told Fox News during a recent interview that "history is written by the winners."
Perhaps in the Newspeak pseudo-history of the future it will be written that Donald Trump saved the United States by personally defeating a real-yet-somehow-fake plague, an "invisible enemy" that was brought upon America by the Asians, the blacks, the Hispanics, Native Americans, the Jews, Barack Obama, the Democrats and the "fake news" reporters and journalists.
Truth is always one of the first victims of fascism. In that regard, American fascism is in no way exceptional.
Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.
Big Oil taking $1.9 billion in CARES Act tax breaks aimed at helping small businesses in ‘Stealth bailout’: report
May 17, 2020 By Common Dreams- Commentary
Sen. Bernie Sanders was among critics outraged that the fossil fuel industry is using tax breaks in the CARES Act meant to help businesses keep workers employed to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes—and then delivering that money to executives.
“Good thing President Trump is looking out for the real victims of the coronavirus: fossil fuel executives,” Sanders tweeted sarcastically Friday.
Coronavirus has killed more than 85,000 people. Some 36 million workers have lost their jobs. Good thing President Trump is looking out for the real victims of the coronavirus: fossil fuel executives. https://t.co/4sj6gT53f9
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 15, 202
Reporting from Bloomberg News showed that “$1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms, and contractors”—what watchdog group Documented senior researcher Jesse Coleman described as a “stealth bailout” of the climate-killing industry.
“In the name of ‘small business,’ we’re shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys,” Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told Bloomberg.
Bloomberg used the example of how Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. manipulated the bailout to explain the tax scheme:
As it headed toward bankruptcy, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill Congress passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it asked a bankruptcy judge to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.
According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Diamond’s refund pales in comparison to some of its larger competitors, “including $55 million for Denver-based Antero Midstream Corp., $41.2 million for supplier Oil States International Inc. and $96 million for Oklahoma-based producer Devon Energy Corp.”
OIL CAPITALISM — Diamond Offshore takes $9.7m from American taxpayers, then earmarks the same amount to execs as bankruptcy bonuses. @jendlouhyhc
– Marathon gets $411m
– Oxy $195m
– Valero $110m
– Devon $96mhttps://t.co/dUyCp9uEpT
— Kevin Crowley (@CrowleyKev) May 15, 2020
The fossil fuel industry was already in financial trouble before the outbreak, which has effectively crippled Big Oil’s ability to make money—even with the generous subsidies given by the federal government. Access to bailout tax break funding is helping fossil fuel companies prosper, along with other climate-destroying industries like mining companies, which have also reaped millions from coronavirus relief legislation.
“The Trump administration’s favor factory hasn’t stopped with a global pandemic,” Accountable.US spokesperson Jayson O’Neill said in a statement Friday. “As millions of jobs disappear week after week, the Trump administration is prioritizing aid for wealthy, well-connected corporations before small businesses.”
Angry truck drivers are slamming Trump for saying their protest on devastatingly low rates was a 'sign of love' for him
May 19, 2020 BUSINESS INSIDER
Truck drivers have protested low pay in Washington, D.C., for much of May. Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images/Pool
Truck drivers are pushing back on Trump for saying that their ongoing protest in Washington, D.C., was a "sign of love."
In fact, the protests are aimed at increasing transparency into the brokerage industry, where truck drivers are paired with retailers and manufacturers to move loads.
Trump has promised to change this system where brokers can seemingly get away with fleecing truck drivers.
But drivers told Business Insider that they doubt the president will stick to his word.
A group of protesting truck drivers, blaring their horns, interrupted a White House press conference on May 15. President Donald Trump was forced to stop talking about potential vaccines for the coronavirus to recognize the group.
But Trump said the truck drivers weren't protesting — they were parked outside the White House as a "sign of love" for him.
In fact, it's a protest on what truck drivers say is a lack of transparency in how their rates are calculated. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, their pay has sank to unusually low rates.
Some 100 to 200 truck drivers have parked in Washington, DC, since May 1, according to Todd Spencer, who is the president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. For weeks, these drivers have sacrificed their pay to protest.
Protesting truck drivers don't believe that everyone in the trucking industry has experienced the same collapse. They say brokers, who connect drivers to retailers and manufacturers, haven't seen their pay change. Many of America's largest brokers have laid off employees since the pandemic struck.
How much money they take from drivers is unclear. According to Spencer, a federal regulation that requires brokers to reveal the breakdown of rates that they charge truck drivers is often circumvented. The Washington, DC, protests are aimed at pushing Trump and Congress to demand further transparency from brokers.
Trump has said these brokers are "price-gouging" truck drivers. Still, no action has been made on Trump's side to advance transparency into trucking rates.
So the protests in DC continue — and truck drivers say they're still struggling as the federal government fails to provide further stimulus money, too.
Truck drivers voted for Trump in droves in 2016 — but several snubs have pushed truckers away
So when truck driver Desiree Wood read on Twitter that Friday that Trump had reduced her colleagues' protest to a Trump rally, she "just couldn't believe it."
"When he got elected the first time, a lot of truck drivers supported him with an awareness that he didn't know a lot about trucking," Wood, who is the president of the advocacy group Real Women in Trucking, told Business Insider.
A Verdant Labs analysis of Federal Elections Commission data found that nearly three-quarters of truck drivers are Republican — one of the most conservative jobs in America, along with surgeons and farmers.
Trump proved especially popular among drivers. Truck drivers supported Trump in droves, according to an Overdrive magazine survey of its readers before the 2016 election. About 75% said they planned to vote for Trump, up from 66% who supported Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
US President Donald Trump sits in the cab of a truck as he welcomes members of American Trucking Associations to the White House. Alex Wong/Getty Images
But, the love affair has soured. The Trump administration has delivered a few blows to America's 1.9 million truck drivers.
Trump's new taxation laws have forced many truck drivers to pay thousands more in taxes than usual, thanks to a change in per-diem laws. Dennis Bridges, an accountant who specializes in doing taxes for truckers, told Mother Jones in 2019 that 75% of his clients saw an unusually large tax payment that year, and about 20% had to fork over more than $5,000.
Last year, manufacturing levels collapsed to its lowest point in a decade, which then spurred an unusually high number of bankruptcies in the trucking industry and a collapse in pay rates. Several blamed Trump's trade war with China for "killing" their livelihood.
Wood said the incident on Friday was yet another snub to truck drivers. "Some of them have an awareness now that Trump is sort of like that guy who tells you you're the only one just to get through tonight," Wood said. "And then tomorrow, he doesn't answer your call anymore."
Other trucking activists agree. "You're a political toy! Placated and being used," trucking activist Charles Claburn wrote on Facebook, as reported by Transportation Nation Network. "You leave that street (and) it's over. We need more trucks. They see us, now they need to hear us! There needs to be a clear ultimatum sent by this industry they have 6 weeks to deliver the promises, if not in writing, then it's time to do it right."
Truckload rates have slashed by 54% from last year
Truck driver Steven Popec, who lives in a suburb of Chicago, owns and operates his own truck. The loads he used to drive with his wife, also a driver, now pay a third of what they did last year.
To drive a load 700 miles, Popec earns a gross profit of $407 before he has to pay for his insurance, maintenance, tractor and trailer loans, and so on. He applied for a loan through the Small Business Association but, like many truck drivers who run their own businesses, he hasn't received a penny.
"We are going deeper in debt — no relief, no SBA answer, nothing," Popec told Business Insider. "To say truckers love the president, for what reason? What has he really done for truckers or any average American worker? Please, prove me wrong Mr. President."
Truck driver Osmany Almeida from Orlando, Fla., joins other truck drivers and small truck owners during a rally near the White House Friday, May 1, 2020, in Washington, to gather support on the plight of the trucks drivers and small truck owners. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
April rates for spot-market loads — trucking jobs tendered in real time rather than through a prearranged contract — were 54% lower than in April 2019, according to data from the load-board company DAT. Rates in April fell to five-year lows for refrigerated and flatbed loads.
Cass Information Systems said April freight volumes hit levels not seen since 2009, obliterating take-home pay for drivers.
Despite the collapse in pay, truck drivers remain more vital than ever during the pandemic. If all truck drivers in America stopped working today, grocery stores would run out of food just two to three days later. Hospitals would be bereft of essential medical supplies, too.
That's caused Popec to feel that drivers like himself as "forgotten souls." He's not sure Trump, or anyone running for office, would change that.
"We no longer have candidates who care about the working class," Popec told Business Insider, "only folks capable of raising money to support their own individual interest."
Read more about how truck drivers have struggled during the coronavirus
Watch truck drivers interrupt Trump's press conference on a coronavirus vaccine with loud honking he called a 'sign of love'
Why America's $800 billion trucking industry was left out of the $2 trillion stimulus bill
Leaked memo reveals trucking giant mistakenly distributed faulty sanitation wipes to its 10,000-plus drivers
Truck drivers have a big problem: Rest stops are shuttering across the US, leaving them to scramble for places to sleep, eat, and use the restroom
Canadian preacher arrested for breaking coronavirus ban after which he and dozens of his followers became infected
Published on May 20, 2020 By Agence France-Presse
Myanmar police arrested a Canadian pastor Wednesday for allegedly holding a service in defiance of a coronavirus ban on mass gatherings — after which he and dozens of his followers and their families became infected.
The Southeast Asian nation has so far only confirmed 193 cases and six deaths from the disease, although experts fear low numbers tested mean the true figures could be far higher.
Myanmar-born preacher David Lah, 43, is based out of Toronto, Canada but often visits his motherland to give sermon tours.
Myanmar introduced a ban on mass gatherings in mid-March.
Footage emerged early April showing Lah leading services in which he claimed Christians would be spared from the pandemic.
“If people hold the Bible and Jesus in their hearts, the disease will not come in,” he proclaimed in one video to a roomful of faithful followers.
“The only person who can cure and give peace in this pandemic is Jesus.”
Shortly afterwards Lah tested positive with coronavirus and figures released by the government show dozens of confirmed cases could be traced back to his followers.
Myo Gyi, lead singer of Myanmar’s most famous rock band Iron Cross, was among those infected.
After emerging from quarantine, Lah was arrested Wednesday morning and taken to a Yangon court where he was charged with violating the Natural Disaster and Management Law.
He could face three years behind bars if convicted.
“The police procedure was delayed because he was recovering from the disease,” a police officer told AFP, declining to be named.
Three others will also face charges in connection with the same events when they recuperate, he added.
The scandal even touched Myanmar’s Christian vice president Henry Van Thio and his family, who had attended an earlier service with Lah in February, although they later tested negative.
About six percent of Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s population identifies as one of the various Christian denominations in the country.
Lah is being held in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison and is due to appear in court again June 3.
© 2020 AFP
BAM!
Steve Schmidt: ‘Abject idiocy’ of Trump is ‘what matters the most’ during coronavirus pandemic
Published May 19, 2020
Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt harshly criticized President Donald Trump during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC.
“Look, President Trump is many things. He’s dishonest, He’s lied to the American people more than 17,000 times. He completely is corrupt,” Schmidt said. “He’s indecent, he’s vile, he’s divisive, but in this moment, the thing that matters the most — and I don’t say this to name call — but he’s an imbecile.
“That’s the precise word we use in the English language to describe his comportment, to describe his behavior.”
“Every day has been the achievement of a new stratosphere of just abject idiocy flowing out from the White House. So it’s the mismanagement of the crisis, we see the continual assault on our democratic institutions, the undermining of the rule of law, the institutionalization of the corruption of this administration, through the attorney general, the firing of the inspector generals, and on and on it goes,” he warned.
“Chris, the most powerful country in the world, supposedly — economically, militarily — we are a basket case,” he added. “You have more likelihood of catching it in the United States than anyplace else. You have more likelihood of not being able to get a test for it than anyplace else.”
“And so when we look at the totality of it, the mismanagement, the incompetence is so epically bad, there’s no comparison to it in the whole of American history,” Schmidt concluded.
VIDEO
Trump’s biggest fans are so bent on taking hydroxychloroquine they’re making their own
May 20, 2020
President Donald Trump’s staunchest fans are so bent on taking hydroxychloroquine they’re sharing recipes for making their own.
The president has been hyping the anti-malarial drug as a preventative and treatment for the coronavirus, and claimed this week he’s been taking it himself, and his right-wing allies have promoting it and also taking the drug themselves, reported The Daily Beast.
“Tell everyone you’re taking it,” tweeted Lionel Lebron, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and conservative social media personality who visited Trump at the White House in 2018. “Even if you’re not. Say you’re taking it via enema. A high colonic with a twist of lime.”
#HCQ. Tell everyone you’re taking it. Even if you’re not. Say you’re taking it via enema. A high colonic with a twist of lime. You’re bathing in it. Say you’re having clothes made with fibers soaked in HCQ. Name your dog HCQ. Tattoo it on your forehead. Drive these idiots nuts.
—
Lionel
(@LionelMedia) May 19, 2020
The Food and Drug Administration does not recommend hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 outside of hospitals or clinical trials, warning the drug can produce “abnormal heart rhythms” in some patients, and a Veterans Affairs study found the drug had no effect on the virus and may lead to death for some patients.
But other QAnon conspiracy theorists are so sure that Trump’s right about hydroxychloroquine they’re sharing recipes for the drug that consists of steeping various fruit rinds so followers can avoid “big pharmas fillers.”
Others, such as Missouri chiropractor Eric Nepute, are urging their online followers to drink Schweppes Tonic Water for the quinine, falsely claiming its effects “similar-ish” to hydroxychloroquine, but the Snopes website says a person would need to drink 25 liters a day to ingest enough quinine for medicinal purposes.
Talk radio host and former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka claims he’s been taking hydroxychloroquine for a month to prevent COVID-19 infection, and Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS), a doctor and Kansas Senate candidate, says he and several family members are taking hydroxychloroquine as a prevenative.
“I’m relieved President Trump is taking it,” Marshall said.
Fringe right-wing figure Michael Coudrey, who’s been retweeted by the president in the past, claimed the drug has pleasant side effects.
“My face is also very plush and vibrant,” Coudrey tweeted.
DEFENSE NEWS
Fisher Sand & Gravel awarded $1.28B for border wall construction
A section of border fence on the U.S. - Mexico border is seen in Tecate, California on June 10, 2019. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
IT IS NOT AND NEVER WAS A WALL
May 19 (UPI) -- A North Dakota construction company that drew scrutiny for a previous contract won a $1.28 billion border wall construction contract earlier in May.
Fisher Sand & Gravel's new contract was not announced by the Department of Defense, which has awarded several border wall contracts, or by Customs & Border Patrol, but was reported by the Arizona Daily Star.
It's set to fund about 42 miles of border wall in Arizona, from Nogales to the eastern boundary of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
In December Fisher Sand & Gravel was awarded $400 million to build a wall near Yuma County, Ariz.
The company's CEO, Tommy Fisher, publicly campaigned for wall contracts and paid $145,000 to discuss the border wall with lawmakers and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Fisher's campaign has provoked public admiration from President Donald Trump, but also accusations of undue influence from Democrats -- and an audit from the Pentagon's inspector general, which officials say is still ongoing.
That audit is still ongoing.
Fisher has said he can build a wall more cheaply than other contractors, but the new award to Fisher costs about $30 million per mile of wall, making it more expensive than other contracts for the wall -- and making the wall one of the largest federal infrastructure projects in American history.
About 180 miles have been built since January 2017, and acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said last week that he expects to see as many as 400 miles of completed wall this year.
Congressional Democrats called for a halt to border construction projects this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the DoD has awarded numerous contracts for wall construction, including others that have drawn criticism due to high costs and possible undue influence.
Poll: Americans more liberal socially than economically
Activists demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court on October 8, 2019, as the court hears arguments in three cases that influence lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender protections. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
May 20 (UPI) -- The gap between Americans who view themselves economically conservative and fiscally liberal is narrower than it's ever been -- but a Gallup survey Wednesday showed that social issues are still where more citizens have a liberal viewpoint.
The poll shows a gap of just 18 points separate the two positions, the closes point in the history of the survey.
Thirty-nine percent of U.S. adults said they are conservative on economic issues while 21 percent said they're liberal. Thirty-eight percent answered they're moderate fiscally.
Over the years, the gap had been as wide as 36 points (2010) and as close as 20, at various times.
The survey showed Americans are closer on social issues. Thirty-five percent said they're socially conservative and 29 percent said they're liberal.
The social gap was also widest in 2010, Gallup said, when conservatives held a 17-point majority.
More than 60 percent of Republicans said they are socially and fiscally conservative -- while about four or five in 10 Democrats said they're liberal in both areas.
Gallup said the figures continue a trend of Americans being more liberal socially than they are economically.
Gallup polled more than 1,000 U.S. adults for the survey, which has a margin of error of 4 points
POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK
Hobby Lobby accuses Christie's of selling ancient artifact fraudulently
The cuneiform tablet in question tells the Epic of Gilgamesh. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York
May 19 (UPI) -- Hobby Lobby sued Christie's on Tuesday, accusing the auction house of selling it an ancient artifact that had been looted.
The lawsuit comes one day after U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York seized the cuneiform tablet from where it was housed at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
Hobby Lobby said Christie's told the company the sale of the cuneiform tablet, which features the Epic of Gilgamesh, was legal. The auction house allegedly said the tablet had been sold by San Francisco firm Butterfield & Butterfield in 1981, meaning it had ownership in the United States prior to a federal ban on cultural imports from Iraq in the 1990s.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said a provenance letter proving the tablet was sold in 1981 was false.
RELATED UPI Archives: Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scrolls are fake, analysis shows
"In this case, a major auction house failed to meet its obligations by minimizing its concerns that the provenance of an important Iraqi artifact was fabricated, and withheld from the buyer information that undermined the provenance's reliability," said Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York.
Christie's denied having knowledge that the item's sale was illegal.
"This filing is linked to new information that has come to light regarding an unidentified dealer's admission to government authorities that he illegally imported this item then falsified documents over a decade ago, in order to perpetrate an illegal sale and exploit the legitimate market for ancient art," a spokesperson said in an email to UPI.
RELATED UPI Archives: Hobby Lobby-smuggled artifacts return to Iraq
"Now that we are informed of this illicit activity pre-dating Christie's involvement, we are reviewing all representations made to us by prior owners and will reserve our rights in this matter. Any suggestion that Christie's had knowledge of the original fraud or illegal importation is unsubstantiated."
Hobby Lobby purchased the cuneiform tablet with plans for it to go on display at the Museum of the Bible, partly funded by the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby. The museum opened in 2017 under the shadow of a separate case in which Hobby Lobby agreed to return more than 100 historic artifacts from modern-day Iraq that company President Steve Green purchased in Dubai.
In the lawsuit, Hobby Lobby said it wants the $1.6 million it spent on the tablet back as well as interest on the money since 2014 and attorney's fees.
In addition to Christie's, the lawsuit names the anonymous seller of the cuneiform tablet -- identified as "John Doe" -- as a defendant.
A demonstration of ultraviolet disinfecting technology takes place at the Corona Maintenance Facility in New York City on May 19. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced an ultraviolet light pilot program proven to kill COVID-19, with the first phase set to launch on subways, buses and other New York City Transit facilities early next week. Photo by Marc A. Hermann/MTA New York City Transit | License Photo
