RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 22 to March 28, 2020

Featured Investigation
Accused in the DoJ's Upper Echelon,
But Getting Off Scot-Free

"Kid gloves for we, but not for thee." Readers might find that an apt new motto for the nation's top law enforcement body after reading Eric Felten's latest report in RealClearInvestigations.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, Felten has found that the Justice Department regularly declines to prosecute misbehaving top current and former officials even when its internal watchdog has them pretty much dead to rights. He reports:

• In 2019, the Inspector General’s office issued 27 reports of high-level alleged wrongdoing that went unprosecuted – everything from nepotism in hiring, to making false claims on mortgage documents, to a “lack of candor” with investigators, to sexual assault.
• This is a bad look in light of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian collusion, which repeatedly used the full force of the law to convict Trump associates of process crimes, especially making false statements.
• And top Justice wrongdoers are rarely named publicly, Felten reports, even though FBI officials cuaght up in the Trump-Russia affair have drawn harsh public scrutiny.
• Often cases just quietly go away with the resignation of the misbehaving employee. “So the fact is that a lot of senior officials found culpable of misconduct escape accountability,” says a specialist in government employment law.

Coronavirus Investigations: Top Articles
Doing a Double-Take on China's
No-New-Infection Claim

China’s announcement of nearly a week of no new infections in Wuhan was both hope-inspiring … and hard to believe, Richard Bernstein reports for RealClearInvestigations.

Skepticism about the Wuhan claim is widespread, including inside China, he reports, although some of Beijing's information-sharing on the virus has won praise. Bernstein reports:

• At the same time as the official claim on infections, social media accounts in China were circulating photographs of “urgent notices” put up in residential areas announcing new cases and warning people to stay home.
• Taiwanese TV carried a report from a Wuhan hospital that was blocking admissions because it was under pressure from the central government to report no new cases.
• While presenting China as a world model, the Chinese propaganda machine is lending credence to the unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus actually originated not in a market in Wuhan, but in an American military germ warfare lab.
• Reporters Without Borders reports a relentless crackdown on all independent news outlets that might mar the official narrative.

In separate articles, ProPublica reports that China is hacking user accounts and offering bribes to influencers to spread propaganda about the coronavirus on Twitter. And not only has Britain’s tabloidy Daily Mail been publishing Chinese propaganda, according to the Daily Caller; so has the weekly news touchstone of global elites, The Economist, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

More Coronavirus Investigations

CDC Emails Show Chaos Slowed Response to Coronavirus, ProPublica
Iran Lying About Coronavirus Stats, State Dept. Says, Washington Free Beacon
In Single-Payer Britain, $425 to Jump Test Lines, Wall Street Journal
Some Doctors Stockpile Trial Coronavirus Drugs for Themselves, New York Times
One Nursing Home, 35 Virus Deaths: The Kirkland Disaster, Wall Street Journal
How Westport Soirée Turned 'Super Spreader', New York Times
The Coronavirus May Be Killing More Men Than Women, CNN
The Untold Origin Story of the N95 Mask, Fast Company
Excerpt: The Cholera Medical Detective, Circa 1830s, Granta

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

#MeToo Group Ignored Claim Against Joe Biden
The Intercept
Joe Biden’s declared during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings that women who claim sexual abuse must start with the “presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real." But that statement may be put to the test now that a former staffer claims he violently assaulted her in 1993. Tara Reade – who describes herself as an “activist” and a Bernie Sanders supporter – has previously reported inappropriate conduct by Biden, whose generally hands-on reputation has earned him a meme of "Creepy Joe." “He used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck,” Reade said in April 2019. “I would just kind of freeze and wait for him to stop doing that.” She also said then that her responsibilities in the senator’s office were reduced after she refused to serve drinks at an event — what she called a desire of Biden’s because he liked her legs. This month she made a far more explosive allegation: She claims Biden kissed her without permission, pushing her against a wall, reaching under her skirt, and penetrating her with his fingers. At the time, she told her now-deceased mother; her brother, and a friend who worked in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office – the latter two of whom said they recalled hearing about it. Time’s Up, a leading backer of sexual-abuse accusers, told Reade it could provide her that no assistance because Biden was a candidate for federal office and assisting a case against him could jeopardize the organization’s nonprofit status.  

The Mom Who Took On Purdue Pharma's OxyContin Marketing
Wired
Marianne Skolek Perez may be the Erin Brockovich of the opioid crisis – a lone crusader who helped expose a major corporation. After her 29-year-old daughter died from heart failure due to OxyContin she was taking to relieve back pain in 2002, Perez wanted answers. Instead she kept hitting walls set up, she believed, by the drug’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. Undeterred, she became a one-person advocate on behalf of her daughter Jill and other OxyContin victims. For six months she peppered the FDA with letters providing examples in which she thought Purdue was mass-merchandising its powerful painkiller. She also called local reporters in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and encouraged them to look into the company and its best-selling medication. She did not then know it, but her letters helped move the FDA to issue a January 2003 “warning letter” to Purdue. This article details her continuing efforts to hold Purdue Pharma responsible.

Venezuela: Nearly a Million Kids Left Behind as Parents Flee
New York Times
Seven years into an economic collapse, Venezuela’s migrant crisis has grown into one of the largest in the world. Millions have already left. By the end of 2020, an estimated 6.5 million people will have fled, according to the United Nations refugee agency – a number rarely, if ever, seen outside of war. But hidden inside that data is a startling phenomenon. Venezuela’s mothers and fathers, determined to find work, food and medicine, are leaving hundreds of thousands of children in the care of grandparents, aunts, uncles and even siblings who have barely passed puberty themselves. The exodus is so large that it is reshaping the very concept of childhood in Venezuela, sending grade-schoolers into the streets to work – and leaving many exposed to the swirl of abusive players who have filled the vacuum left by the collapsing Venezuelan state, including sex traffickers and armed groups.

Defectors Tell of Brutality in Exiled Iran Opposition
The Intercept
The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) started as a militant revolutionary movement in Iran, committed in principle to bringing human rights and democracy to Iran. At first it opposed the Shah, then the Ayatollah. But over the last four decades, it has devolved into a secretive, cult-like group that resembles a militant, Islamist version of the Church of Scientology – which deals harshly with members who want to leave the group. The MEK has carried out bombings, sabotage missions, and murders. Since its founding in 1963, it is believed to have killed hundreds or even thousands of Iranians, as well as a handful of Americans. From 1997 to 2012, the United States designated the MEK a foreign terrorist organization. But, this article reports, the group which once opposed U.S. intervention in Iran has effectively switched sides, becoming a convenient proxy force for Tehran’s enemies. The current MEK leadership maintains close ties with several prominent American politicians, including Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton and the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, both of whom have been paid speakers at MEK events.

A Mustang Crisis Looms in the West
New York Times
Invoking images of America’s mythic past, wild horses are once again roaming public lands in the west – and it is a big problem. The government is using helicopters to corral the mustangs in order to keep the herds down so they don’t destroy delicate native species habitat and threaten the livelihoods of ranchers. But, this article reports, the Bureau of Land Management has been losing that fight on two fronts: It hasn’t been able to round up nearly enough horses to limit the wild population. And it doesn’t know what to do with the 49,000 horses it has managed to capture. The rented pastures and feed lots where they are kept now devour more than two-thirds of the program’s budget, leaving little money for anything else, including sending in the Cavalry.