Sunday, January 10, 2021

MAGA MOB KIA UPDATED

US riot: woman killed in US Capitol siege was a

pro-Trumper sucked in by QAnon conspiracy theory

CRUSHED UNDERFOOT AT TRUMP'S INSURRECTION

9 Jan, 2021

One of the people who died during this week's horrific riot on the US Capitol was a conspiracy theorist trampled to death by fellow pro-Trump rioters.

Roseanne Boyland travelled from Georgia to attend a rally held by Donald Trump to coincide with the confirmation of the electoral college vote in the Congress on Wednesday, local time.

Boyland's devastated family have revealed the 34-year-old "spiralled" into the depths of the QAnon theory, which peddles the belief that a global gang of high-profile paedophiles wants to topple Trump.

Roseanne Boyland is 34 and travelled from Georgia to attend a rally. Photo / Twitter

Roseanne Boyland pictured carrying a Don't Tread On Me flag. Photo / Twitter

Boyland's friend, Justin Winchell, who was with her, recalled her final moments as protesters began falling over one another

"I put my arm underneath her and was pulling her out and then another guy fell on top of her, and another guy was just walking [on top of her]," Winchell told the news network CBS46.

"There were people stacked two, three deep… people just crushed."

"It cost her her life," her sister, Lonna Cave, said.

Cave said her sister had sworn to her family that she wasn't going to get caught up in anything violent.

She pleaded with Boyland not to make the trip to Washington.

"She promised me, 'I'm going to stand on the side lines. I'm just going to show my support,'" she said.

The sisters fought about politics and QAnon, which contends e-retailer Wayfair is part of a secret cabal of child-sex traffickers. She glommed on to other conspiracy theories.

"It just spiralled," said Cave, 39.

Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the US Capitol Building on January 6 before a mob stormed the Capitol, breaking windows and clashing with police officers. Photo / Getty Images

Boyland was a staunch Trump supporter, posting photos and videos of the president and posting wild allegations, including one that the pandemic was just a way to steal the November election.

Her last Twitter post was on Wednesday, before Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, where lawmakers were debating the Electoral College outcome.

She retweeted a picture of thousands surrounding the Washington Monument.

The tragic revelation comes as Trump's opponents in Congress move swiftly to impeach him, but there's one huge obstacle they will not be able to overcome in time.

This all comes in the wake of Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump from its platform yesterday. That choice has already caused plenty of fallout.

Four rioters were killed, including one shot by authorities while trying to breach a door.

A Capitol police officer suffered head injuries and died in hospital a day later.

'It just spiralled' - family of Trump supporter who died in Capitol siege believe US President incited riot

Rosanne Boyland was one of three people who died of medical emergencies.

This photo provided by Justin Cave shows Rosanne Boyland. Boyland, from Kennesaw, Ga., was one of three people who died of medical emergencies during the violence inside and outside the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. A friend said Boyland was pinned to the ground and trampled during a violent clash between rioters and police. (Justin Cave via AP)

Associated Press Reporters

January 09 2021

One of the Trump supporters who died during Wednesday’s siege at the US Capitol was a recovering drug addict who wanted to become a sobriety counsellor, but had also started following the widely discredited QAnon conspiracy theory that has circulated online, her family has said.

Rosanne Boyland, 34, from Georgia, was one of three people who died of medical emergencies when a pro-Trump mob, egged on by the outgoing president, stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s victory. A fourth person was shot dead by police and an officer was also killed.

Capitol police have not released details about how Ms Boyland died.

“It just spiralled,” Ms Boyland’s sister, Lonna Cave, said outside her home in Atlanta.

She said the family has heard conflicting accounts. A friend who was with her said Ms Boyland was pinned to the ground and trampled during a violent clash between rioters and police, but her sister said a police detective told the family she had collapsed while standing to the side in the Capitol Rotunda.

Ms Cave said her sister had no intention of committing violence when she travelled to Washington, but the family had begged her not to go.

“She promised me, ‘I’m going to stand on the sidelines. I’m just going to show my support’,” Ms Cave told the Associated Press.

Ms Boyland had been arrested multiple times on drug offences, but had been sober for several years and found new purpose in politics, according to a friend, Nicholas Stamathis.

“She got clean and sober and stopped blaming other people for her problems and got real conservative,” he said.

She attended meetings of an addiction group in Atlanta and picked up her young nieces every day from school, her sister said.

The deadly insurrection led Ms Boyland’s brother-in-law, Justin Cave, to call for Donald Trump’s removal from office.

“My own personal belief is that I believe that the president’s words and rhetoric incited a riot (Wednesday) that killed four of his biggest fans,” said Mr Cave.

The sisters also clashed over Ms Boyland’s political views and the QAnon myth, which includes wild allegations of a child sex ring. Ms Boyland had begun following the conspiracy theory over the past six months, Ms Cave said.

Ms Boyland explored its baseless accusations that online furniture retailer Wayfair was part of the fictional ring, her sister said, and her faith in conspiracies spiralled from there.

“She would text me some things, and I would be like, ‘Let me fact-check that’. And I’d sit there and I’d be like, ‘Well, I don’t think that’s actually right’. We got in fights about it, arguments.”

Ms Boyland’s Facebook page featured photos and videos praising Mr Trump and promoting fantasies, including one theory that a shadowy group was using coronavirus to steal elections.

While they had not seen each other in years, Mr Stamathis said they chatted over Facebook Messenger regularly. A week or two ago, they had traded memes “of liberals losing their mind” online.

Another friend, Justin Winchell, said Ms Boyland was pinned to the ground when bodies of police and protesters pushed against each other. People began falling and then trampling one another, he told WGCL-TV in Atlanta.

“I put my arm underneath her and was pulling her out and then another guy fell on top of her, and another guy was just walking (on top of her),” he said. “There were people stacked two to three-deep… people just crushed.

The two others who died of medical emergencies were Kevin Greeson, 55, of Alabama, and Benjamin Philips, 50, of Pennsylvania.

Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego, was shot dead by police as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded doorway inside the Capitol.

Capitol Police Officer Brian D Sicknick was hit on the head with a fire extinguisher, according to law enforcement officials. He died in hospital.

Ms Boyland’s family has received multiple threats since her death. They blame Mr Trump for the violence, believing she got caught up in the president’s lies about the election.

“It cost her her life,” Ms Cave said.

'Nothing will stop us': Woman fatally shot during riot ex Air Force staffer
6 Jan, 2021

A woman who was shot during the Washington riots has died from her injuries.

The grim news of the woman's death was confirmed by US media and Washington DC police this morning, although it has not yet been confirmed who fired the fatal shot.

However, an eyewitness interviewed by CNN claimed the woman may have been hit by an individual guarding the inside of the House Chamber.

The Trump supporter was shot dead inside the Capitol building. Photo / Twitter

The victim has been identified as air force vet and Californian Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, with her husband confirming the news with KUSI-TV.

Just a day before her death, Babbitt took to Twitter to vow that "nothing will stop us".

"They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours ... dark to light," she posted.

Nothing will stop us....they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours....dark to light!— CommonAshSense (@Ashli_Babbitt) January 5, 2021

Babbit also retweeted on Wednesday morning (US time) a "MUST BE DONE LIST before Congress meets today".

It included, "Mike Pence must resign & thereafter be charged with TREASON" and "Chief Justice John Roberts must RESIGN".

A confronting video of the moment Babbitt was shot began circulating online soon after the incident, which captured the sound of a gunshot before revealing the woman lying on the floor as blood poured from her mouth

Onlookers were heard screaming "Where's she hit?" as they rushed to assist her, and she was later taken from the building in a stretcher.

Babbitt was pictured on camera draped in a red, white and blue flag.

Onlookers rushed to the injured woman's aid. Photo / Twitter

The chaos arose after MAGA protesters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow democracy in the dying days of Donald Trump's presidency this morning.

The outgoing President's supporters have not only taken to the streets, but have also breached the US Capitol building after breaking through barriers, withstanding tear gas and engaging in an armed standoff with police in a stunning refusal to accept Trump's election loss.

A number of police officers have also reportedly been injured during clashes with demonstrators.

The emergency kicked off while congress was in session to count and certify the Electoral College votes following the November 3 election, with MAGA supporters attempting to disrupt the proceedings and overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory by storming the House Floor.

The joint session has since been halted, with a protester breaching the Senate floor and taking the Speaker's chair.

A woman has been shot in Washington DC. Photo / Twitter

Audibly shaken media commentators have likened the situation to that of a "third world country"or "civil war", with CNN anchors this morning describing the chaos as a full-blown "rebellion" and "insurrection" in Washington DC and claiming Americans were "witnessing an attempt at sedition" on their television screens.

"This is just Bedlam … this is Trump's rebellion," one said, adding the situation was "very, very tense" and "out of control"

Reporters said they had not seen anything like the unfolding crisis since the Vietnam War, labelling the situation "unprecedented" and claiming it was "not a peaceful protest".

Ashli Babbitt, rioter fatally shot in DC, was ‘bananas’ over Trump: grandfather

By Joshua Rhett Miller
January 8, 2021 |

Share: Ashli Babbitt, killed in Capitol, criticized politicians for ‘refusing to choose America’

The Air Force veteran who was fatally shot as she stormed the Capitol was an “excellent patriot” who was a fanatic follower of President Trump, her grandfather said.

Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego, was among five people who died after Wednesday’s breach of the building following a rally held earlier outside the White House by Trump, whom she strongly supported since first announcing his White House bid.

“Ever since he was running for election, back in 2015, she’s been bananas over Trump,” Babbitt’s grandfather, Tony Mazziott, told “Good Morning America” in an interview. “She thinks he’s the final coming of the Lord, I guess.”

A day before she was killed by an unidentified Capitol Police officer, the married Babbitt tweeted that “nothing will stop us” while vowing that a “storm” would descend upon Washington within 24 hours.

Babbitt — who served 12 years in the Air Force, Air Force Reserves and Air National Guard — was a “loving person” who regularly attended rallies for Trump, her grandfather said.

SEE ALSO

Ashli Babbitt, protester killed at Capitol, was Air Force vet from California

“She served time in the military and she’s passionate about everything, particularly Donald Trump, for some reason,” Mazziott continued.

Babbitt was also deployed three times during her military service, including tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the report.

Mazziott told KGTV Babbitt was his only granddaughter and lived with him for several years as a child.

“We supported her passion, what can I say?” Mazziott told the station. “Didn’t argue with her because you’d never win.”

Babbitt’s husband, meanwhile, told KSWB he reached out to his wife about 30 minutes before she was shot, but never heard back. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Babbitt -- who served 12 years in the Air Force, Air Force Reserves and Air National Guard -- was a "loving person" who regularly attending rallies for Trump, her grandfather said.
Maryland MVA/Courtesy of the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office via AP

“She loved her country and she was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country,” Aaron Babbitt told the station. “She was voicing her opinion and she got killed for it.”

A GOP lawmaker who witnessed the shooting said Thursday that Babbitt was shot as she tried to breach the House chambers. The officer who shot her “didn’t have a choice” but to open fire, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told “GMA” Thursday.

12
Melody Black, from Minnesota, becomes emotional as she visits a
memorial setup near the Capitol for Ashli Babbitt.

Trump supporters attack Associated Press photographer amid DC riots

By Lia Eustachewich
January 8, 2021 |

An Associated Press photographer was attacked by pro-Trump protesters during the riots on Capitol Hill, because they mistakenly thought he was a member of Antifa.

Video from Wednesday shows lensman John Minchillo — who is wearing a black gas mask, helmet and black jacket and has cameras swinging from his neck — being repeatedly shoved by angry protesters who shout, “Get the f–k out of here!”

At one point, Minchillo puts his hands up and pleads with the protesters, “All right. All right. Enough.”

A few men manage to jostle Minchillo away from the police barriers in front of the steps of the Capitol building and through the crowd — and then one shoves him over a short wall.

That’s when another man in a Trump cap intervenes, as the others shout, “Who is he? Who is he?” and “Are you Antifa? Are you Antifa?”

Minchillo pulls out his NYPD-issued press pass, and the man in the Trump hat tells them, “No, he’s not. He’s press” and hands Minchillo back a camera.

The man in the hat then walks Minchillo and his colleague, Julio Cortez, who filmed the heated encounter with his GoPro, safely out of the crowd.

Cortez said Minchillo, a longtime AP staff photographer, wasn’t injured in the melee.

Capitol rioters seen destroying the equipment of an AP reporter
Play Video

“He was labeled as an anti protesters [sic], even though he kept flashing his press credentials, and one person can be heard threatening to kill him,” Cortez wrote of the chaotic scene.

“This is an unedited, real life situation of a member of the press keeping his cool even though he was being attacked. A true professional and a great teammate, I’m glad we were able to get away.”

AP photographer John Minchillo is attacked by Trump supporters during the breach of the Capitol. AP/Julio Cortez

Minchillo declined to comment.

Members of Antifa — a violent, far-left extremist group known for wreaking havoc at past protests and clashing with pro-Trump crowds — typically dress head to toe in black, with masks to obscure their faces. RIGHT WING OPINION, ANTIFA ARE DEFENSE FOR PROTESTERS ATTACKED BY THESE TRUMP MILITIAS THE RIGHT

CLAIMS THEY ARE DRESSED TO KILL BECAUSE LIKE THE COPS THEY FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES.

Five people died in the riots on the Capitol grounds, including a Capitol Police officer who was struck in the head with a fire extinguisher while battling protesters.

Protester and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was shot dead by Capitol Police after breaching the Capitol building, and authorities said three other people died of “medical emergencies” during Wednesday’s protest.

REPORT

Trump’s Inexplicable Crusade to Help Iran Evade Sanctions

The U.S. president never could grasp that shielding Turkey’s Halkbank for Erdogan would make Iranian sanctions evasion easier.

BY KELLY BJORKLUND

| JANUARY 9, 2021, 6:01 AM

On March 1, a U.S. District Court in New York will start the trial of what is alleged to be the largest-ever sanctions evasions scheme, a $20 billion plan prosecutors say was carried out by Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank, in connivance with top Turkish government officials, to help Iran sidestep punishing U.S. economic sanctions.

If Halkbank is found guilty and ends up frozen out of the U.S. financial system, the economic implications for an already reeling Turkish economy could be massive. Likewise, the political aftershocks in Turkey from the trial’s outcome could be devastating for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has tried to blame political enemies for the whole scheme.

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Since the U.S. case began more than four years ago, the Trump White House has repeatedly sought to shield Halkbank from paying any penalty for its role in helping Iran, including firing a pair of federal prosecutors handling the case and asking top cabinet officials to pressure the Justice Department to drop it.

All the while, one big question has lingered: Why would U.S. President Donald Trump—whose administration has taken a hard-line stance against Iran, including what it describes as a “maximum pressure” campaign to strangle its economy—repeatedly try to shield one of Iran’s biggest helpers in evading those very sanctions?

The simple answer? It appears that Trump never understood the charges against the bank or how they related to Iran—and he just wanted to do a favor for his fellow strongman, Erdogan.

It appears that Trump never understood the charges against the bank or how they related to Iran—and he just wanted to do a favor for his fellow strongman, Erdogan.

It appears that Trump never understood the charges against the bank—he just wanted to do a favor for his fellow strongman.“Despite being told what Halkbank was being investigated for, I’m still not certain he ever fully appreciated it was for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and then committing financial fraud by lying about the violations,” said former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who had sought to explain the case to the president. “I don’t think Trump ever fully internalized what the nature of the underlying charges was.”

Bolton explained that the approach had to do with Trump’s fascination with authoritarian leaders—and his personalized, transactional approach to foreign policy.

“I think Trump was just taken with how [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and Erdogan could just sort of do things in their respective countries and not have to account for it, so you could make a big gesture and forget the normal procedures of, in this case, law enforcement,” Bolton told Foreign Policy.

The scheme that prosecutors say is the biggest effort to evade sanctions in history began in late 2012 at the urging of Erdogan, then Turkey’s prime minister, according to testimony by the man at the heart of the plan, Turkish Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab. The plan was for Iran to turn its oil and gas exports into gold that it could actually access—something made more difficult by existing U.S. sanctions.

Even after U.S. sanctions officials warned Halkbank in early 2013 that it was “in a category unto themselves” when it came to potential involvement in an Iranian sanctions evasion gambit, bank managers and Zarrab found a way to carry on.

“These allegations are in a sense unprecedented in terms of the gravity and scope of the alleged deception and evasion,” said John Smith, a former director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a partner at Morrison & Foerster.

And even after the bank got shut down once, after a late 2013 raid by Turkish law enforcement, the bank was soon back in operation. According to the U.S. indictment, Zarrab paid bribes to secure his and his co-defendants’ release and secure dismissal of the case in 2014. He then appealed to Halkbank to restart the sanctions evasions scheme; Erdogan and his associates “instructed Halkbank to resume the scheme, and Halkbank agreed,” the indictment noted.

“These allegations are in a sense unprecedented in terms of the gravity and scope of the alleged deception and evasion.”The scheme continued until Zarrab decided to take a trip to Disney World; in March 2016, he was arrested in Miami, finally shutting down the program for good.

Almost immediately, and for years afterward, the Turkish government began pressuring U.S. officials to drop the case—starting by leaning on then-Vice President Joe Biden. Erdogan later tried to get then-President Barack Obama to intervene. Both Biden and Obama flat-out refused.

But then came the inauguration of Trump. In February 2017, Rudy Giuliani, a White House advisor and later the president’s personal lawyer, and Michael Mukasey, the former attorney general under George W. Bush, who had begun representing Zarrab, flew to Turkey to discuss the case with Erdogan. In March 2017, Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York—which was overseeing the Halkbank case—was fired, despite Trump’s prior guarantee he would stay on. But the case continued.

Later in 2017, Trump tried to get then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to pressure the Justice Department to drop the case against Zarrab. Tillerson said that he refused to do so and objected to Trump’s efforts, considering them illegal interference.

Tillerson told Foreign Policy that he was “not really sure that [Trump] understood the magnitude of the Halkbank case,” and he tried to explain the gravity to the president, with no success. Giuliani and Mukasey kept pressing Tillerson to intervene in the case, and he said he told them: “Y’all are barking up the wrong tree here because you’re not going to find an agency in the government that is going to advise the government to do this.” Tillerson warned then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to expect similar pressure from Trump—which duly came, and which Sessions rebuffed. “We can’t drop the case,” Sessions told Trump, Tillerson recalled.

For years, Turkey—and lobbyists it hired in Washington—kept trying to get officials in the Trump administration to make the Halkbank investigation go away. Trump tried to get Sessions’s successors, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and former Attorney General William Barr, to drop cases against Zarrab, Attila, and the bank. Barr led efforts to negotiate a deal wherein the bank would avoid charges.

And Trump’s personal involvement continued. At the Dec. 1, 2018, G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Trump and Erdogan met and discussed the sanctions case. Trump told Erdogan he “would take care of things,” Bolton recalled in his recent book. Erdogan presented Trump with a memo from King & Spalding, which represented Halkbank, Bolton wrote. Trump quickly flipped through the pages and then said that he believed Halkbank was innocent.

“I can tell you Trump didn’t read the papers. He literally just turned the pages.”“I can tell you Trump didn’t read the papers. He literally just turned the pages. It was part of the ‘I’m a big guy, I don’t need to read the papers, I’ll just take his word for it, it looks very persuasive,’” Bolton told Foreign Policy. “It was really pretty stunning. But it had the effect that he wanted on Erdogan.”

Two weeks later, the leaders spoke on the phone, and Trump, according to Bolton, told his Turkish counterpart that “we were getting very close to a resolution on Halkbank.” In April 2019, Trump told Erdogan that he had assigned Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to handle the issue. That month, at an Oval Office meeting, Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Mnuchin met Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s treasury minister at the time. According to the indictment, Albayrak is implicated in the scheme. Mnuchin had six additional meetings with senior Turkish leadership between 2017 and 2019. The effort continued even into 2020, when Trump ordered the firing of yet another Southern District of New York prosecutor, this time Geoffrey Berman.

Bolton, in his book, noted Trump’s penchant to do personal favors for dictators he liked. But in the Halkbank case, doing a favor for an autocrat amounted to a direct conflict with stated U.S. interests—and U.S. law.

Bolton said Trump’s fascination with authoritarian leaders is rooted in a racketeering kind of exchange where Trump would reason, “Oh, you need a favor, I’ll do you a favor,” knowing that he could go back to Erdogan for a favor in return. Bolton said Trump told Erdogan: “I’m just doing it for you personally.”

Neither the White House nor the Turkish Embassy in Washington responded to requests for comment.

The Trump administration never put forth any national security interest as a reason to quash the case—and would be hard pressed to, since turning a blind eye to a massive Iranian effort to evade sanctions and secure billions of dollars works directly against U.S. national security.

“There would not be more serious types of charges than the allegations that the U.S. financial system was used and abused in a way that undermined the integrity of those sanctions against Iran in that period where a nuclear weapons program was something that was a real possibility,” said Smith, the former Office of Foreign Assets Control head.

Tillerson said that there was never a foreign-policy or strategic objective behind the president’s behavior with Erdogan and Halkbank.

“That’s what always made it very difficult in dealing with situations where the president seemed to want to grant relief to very authoritarian figures, whether it’s Erdogan or [North Korean leader] Kim [Jong Un] or go down the list,” he said.

“There were other occasions where Erdogan would ask the president to do certain things and myself or others would intervene and explain to the president that it’d be not only difficult to do but potentially illegal to do so,” he added.

“Erdogan would ask the president to do certain things and myself or others would intervene and explain to the president that it’d be not only difficult to do but potentially illegal to do so.”Prior sanctions evaders—like the French bank BNP Paribas—had been punished with massive fines. But the deterrence value of sanctions goes away if the biggest evaders can get off the hook. Tillerson warned the president: “It’s both the precedent and the fact that if you’re not willing to prosecute these guys for these the most egregious violations under the sanctions laws, then what are you going to do in the future, with anybody?”

In many ways, Trump’s handling of Turkey and the Halkbank case mirrored his broader relationship with Ankara. When Turkey bought Russian-made air defense systems, punishable by mandatory sanctions under U.S. law, Trump dithered. When Turkey asked Trump to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria and clear the way for a Turkish offensive that would threaten U.S. Kurdish partners on the ground, Trump complied.

“In a lot of bilateral issues between the U.S. and Turkey, for reasons that remain somewhat inexplicable, Trump appeared perfectly happy to take Erdogan’s side,” said Nicholas Danforth, a nonresident senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. In both the Russian weapons and the Halkbank case, Trump’s efforts to accommodate Erdogan involved undermining the rule of law in the United States, Danforth noted.

“I haven’t heard anyone put forward a plausible national security case for dismissing or downplaying the Halkbank issue,” Danforth said. “It’s a tribute to how much we’ve accepted about the irrationality of this administration, that that is not even a part of the conversation.”

Jury selection in the Halkbank trial begins next month; a few weeks later, after years of failed Turkish efforts to quash the case, the trial will begin. And so will Erdogan’s political and economic headaches, said Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament and currently the senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The Turkish president’s alleged direct involvement in the case—especially his insistence on restarting the scheme even after it was first shut down—undermines his attempts to scapegoat rivals for the mess and leaves him and the country potentially vulnerable. It also explains Erdogan’s yearslong crusade to get the case dropped.

“There was a massive scheme to bust U.S. sanctions, and Turkey’s ministers and senior officials of Turkey’s second largest public lender colluded with Iranian operatives to make it possible, with Erdogan’s blessing,” Erdemir said.

“It was my conclusion that the reason that Erdogan was taking such a persistent interest in this matter was he was worried about what would emerge or be revealed of his own involvement in this as well as in other things,” Tillerson said.

‘There absolutely will be a black market’: How the rich and privileged can skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines

By OLIVIA GOLDHILL and NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR

Bill Lang didn’t get much of a break over Thanksgiving. Almost every day last week, the medical director at a high-end concierge medical practice, WorldClinic, heard from clients asking when a Covid-19 vaccine would be available.

Two patients even texted on Thanksgiving day. “Since then, I’ve had at least three texts or calls every day just asking, ‘When do you think I can get a vaccine?’” said Lang, who is based in Washington, but also speaks with patients across the U.S. and internationally.

Athletes, politicians, and other wealthy or well-connected people have managed to get special treatment throughout the pandemic, including preferential access to testing and unapproved therapies. Early access to coronavirus vaccines is likely to be no different, medical experts and ethicists told STAT. It could happen in any number of ways, they said: fudging the definition of “essential workers” or “high-risk” conditions, lobbying by influential industries, physicians caving to pressure to keep their patients happy, and even through outright bribery or theft.

The worst attempts to nefariously procure a vaccine may come a few months into distribution, once vaccines are available that don’t require ultra-cold storage and local pharmacies and physician practices get allotments. “There absolutely will be a black market,” said bioethicist Arthur Caplan of New York University. “Anything that’s seen as lifesaving, life-preserving, and that’s in short supply creates black markets.”

Related:
‘Covid is all about privilege’: Trump’s treatment underscores vast inequalities in access to care

At WorldClinic, which charges members $10,000 to $250,000 a year for 24/7 care, no patients have asked for special treatment and the clinic would not undermine its integrity by trying to secure vaccines unethically, said Lang, who was a White House physician during both the Bush and Clinton administrations. “The optics of trying to jump the line would be so bad, they don’t want to do that.” But within the broader system, he added, some people will inevitably cut in line.

“Essential workers” are expected to receive early access to the vaccine, and the definition of this category is open to interpretation by state health departments, creating a means for influential industries to lobby for priority. “The devil’s going to be in the details of how the state runs their program,” Lang said he tells his patients.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the federal panel recommending how to distribute the vaccines, want to prioritize essential workers to help ensure people of color, who are often the hardest hit by the virus, get early access. But the predominantly white workers in the financial services industry are also considered essential, according to guidance from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which was referenced by ACIP, as well as executive orders from several states including New York, Illinois, Colorado, and California. Public-facing bank tellers face contagion risks in their work, but aren’t the only financial services employees included.

“It was left a little bit nebulous but basically covered people who oil the movement of money, so exchanges, trading floors, trading operations, and people who keep money moving at the retail [banking] level,” said Lang. “They’re defined very broadly in New York and Illinois, because that’s where so many of our financial services industries are based.”

The concept of “essential workers” has already been tested during the pandemic, when Florida declared that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) met the definition and could remain open during lockdown. The chairman of WWE, Vince McMahon, is friends with President Trump, while his wife, Linda McMahon, served in the administration and is chair of a pro-Trump super PAC. Neither WWE nor Florida’s health department responded to requests for comment about whether WWE would be considered essential for the vaccine rollout.

Other powerful industries might be tempted to follow this example. The potential of industry lobbyists “redefining what an essential worker is is a very strong possibility,” said Glenn Ellis, a visiting scholar at the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health care at Tuskegee University and a narrative bioethics fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Prioritizing essential workers is intended to give early vaccine access to those who provide a critical societal function and cannot socially distance easily, the Colorado health department said in a statement that acknowledged it can be difficult to write airtight rules. “Given the thousands of different job descriptions in the state, it is impossible to come up with a complete list for every occupation for a specific vaccine phase. Vaccine providers will need to use their best judgment about which patients may qualify for vaccination during this phase.”

The California health department confirmed financial services employees, including those needed to “maintain orderly market operations,” will have early access to the vaccine as essential workers, as will people in the news media, such as reporters. State health departments in New York and Illinois did not respond to requests for comment about whether those in financial services would receive a vaccine early.

Another opening that could be exploited to skip the line involves high-risk medical conditions that warrant early access to the vaccine. Smokers are within this group, according to ACIP, and people with conditions such as moderate-to-severe asthma and high blood pressure could also be included.

This leaves room for a doctor to, for example, portray a patient’s mild asthma as severe enough to justify early access to a vaccine, said Jonathan Cushing, head of major projects of the health initiative at Transparency International, a nonprofit focused on global corruption. The profit motives within U.S. health care make it particularly susceptible to such distortions, he said: “It’s a market-based economy. You as a doctor want to keep your clients coming back.”

Given the need to protect patient privacy, Lang said he doesn’t expect immunization sites to demand documentation of health risk factors. Instead, they will likely either ask patients to state that they have one of the relevant conditions, without disclosing details, or require physician certification, he said: “A lot of that is left to a doctor’s judgment.”

Exaggerating sickness is not a new phenomenon in the U.S. medical system. Insurance companies have portrayed Medicare patients as sicker than they really are, so as to receive higher government payouts. Similarly, physicians to wealthy patients could “make sure they’re among the first to get the vaccines by fudging it in a way that would enable their clients to cut in line” said Wendell Potter, former head of corporate communications at Cigna and current head of the nonprofit Center for Health and Democracy.

The U.S. health care system is generally designed to give preferential treatment to those with wealth and connections, ethicists said. “When we talk about the concept of individuals being able to get to the front of the line, that’s not difficult, because our system is designed to advantage those people with means like that,” said Tuskegee’s Ellis. “They don’t have to really do anything sinister. All they have to do is access the system that they are a part of.”

Powerful companies can leverage their connections with insurance companies to get access to shots quickly, for example. “Some of the richest investment firms have their own mini health systems, so they can run vaccines through those doctors that give the physicals and maintain the health of the executives in the company,” said NYU’s Caplan.

GPS tracking on vaccine shipments will make it harder to pilfer shots en route, though not impossible. “I have a lot of respect for the creativity of criminals,” said Alison Bateman-House, a bioethicist at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “If someone can see a way to make good money off of driving a pallet of vaccines off in a forklift, I’m sure somebody will figure out how to do it.”

But bioethicists believe pharmacies, urgent care clinics, and doctors’ offices are among the most vulnerable points along the distribution chain. The state-line divides within the health care system make it especially vulnerable to abuse. “There’s far less scrutiny of state legislative and regulatory bodies than at the federal level,” said Potter. “The fragmentation makes gaming the system easier and more likely.”

Vaccine administration sites are subject to less scrutiny than vaccine shipments, agreed Hani Mahmassani, the director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center. “Once this product is in the hands of the entities that are responsible for vaccination, and that’s going to be your, sort of, your local entities, really, anything could happen.” Vaccine administrators who accept bribes could face serious deterrents potentially including prosecution, he said, but the possibility can’t be ruled out.

The supply of a high-demand, life-altering vaccine will never be completely protected from abuse.

“Will there be people who do break the line? Yes,” said Lang. “Will family members of Congress somehow get immunized a little bit early? Who knows.”

At a certain point, though, vigilance brings its own risks. “If you add too many inefficiencies of checking and double-checking everyone, then you put so much bureaucracy into the program, you slow things down,” he added.

The public shame of being caught should act as a deterrent, especially if the backlash is akin to what several Hollywood celebrities and wealthy parents faced following the 2019 college admissions bribing and cheating scandal, said Bateman-House.

“I can promise you, no CEO wants to be on the front page of the newspaper for giving preferential access to his college roommate,” she said. “I think a few public naming and shamings would probably tamp down some activity.”

Instilling a sense of public responsibility and solidarity is another way to deter malfeasance, said Cushing, though this is easier in theory than practice. Otherwise, he said, vaccine delivery should be clearly and transparently tracked, and there should be reporting mechanisms to flag abuse, ideally with state hotlines specifically focused on vaccine line-cutting.

Several bioethicists warned that the number of high-profile politicians, including President Trump, Chris Christie, and Ben Carson, who received early access to experimental Covid-19 treatments set a dangerous precedent. When that occurred, the general consensus, Caplan said, was a wink and a blink and a, “Well, that’s the way it is.”

Following the vaccine rollout, the response to the wealthy and powerful cutting the line needs to be different and fierce, he said. “Everybody has to condemn them: the media, your neighbor, your boss, everybody.”

DECEMBER 3, 2020