RealClearInvestigations Newsletters: RCI Today
RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week
RealClearInvestigations'
Picks of the Week
June 7 to June 13
RCI Podcasts & Videos
On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Joel Kotkin about his recent article for RCI, "The Strage Afterlife of Fascism," about how and why an ideology that peaked in the 1920s and 30s has become a fighting buzzword in contemporary politics.
On the Miller Report: RealClear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with David Rosner, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), about the role of FERC, why "cooperative federalism" is essential to meeting America's growing energy needs, the challenges of permitting and cost allocation, and the reforms FERC is pursuing to connect new power demand and generation to the grid more quickly, fairly, and affordably.
Featured Investigation:
Viral Influencer: How Bill Gates’ Billions
Shape U.S. Medical Research
On the eve of Bill Gates’ scheduled testimony before Congress, Paul D. Thacker reports that federal whistleblower documents provided exclusively to RealClearInvestigations show how Gates and his foundation have wielded extraordinary influence over U.S. health policy by strategically providing funding to the National Institutes of Health for nearly 25 years.
- The Gates Foundation donated $200 million to the NIH in 2003 – an unprecedented sum – and subsequently helped shape the agency's scientific priorities, grant funding, and research policies across ten NIH programs, with one former NIH official describing the relationship as "a complete merging of NIH and Gates."
- Gates leveraged financial ties to blur the line between philanthropy and profit, holding equity stakes in vaccine companies like BioNTech and CureVac while simultaneously funding research that advanced those same companies' products – turning a $55 million BioNTech investment into over $550 million after the COVID vaccine reached market.
- Joint Gates-NIH workshops, held on federal property beginning after a 2013 Gates lecture, gave the foundation co-billing with the agency and led to coordinated clinical trials, combined research policies, and shared funding efforts spanning global health, TB treatment, and Ebola response.
- To shape federal Ebola research, Gates routed money through the NIH's nonprofit arm to hire McKinsey – the same consulting firm later fined $650 million for simultaneously advising Purdue Pharma and the FDA during the opioid crisis.
- When Gates made his first personal appearance at the 2016 workshop, NIH Director Francis Collins prepared a minute-by-minute escort itinerary that a senior Trump official said was normally reserved for heads of state, underscoring the degree of deference Gates commanded.
- Critics, including a Doctors Without Borders vaccines adviser, have long questioned what qualifies Gates to direct U.S. government health resources, and the whistleblower documents are now reviving those concerns on the eve of Gates' private congressional testimony.
Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books
Baywatch on Paywatch, RCI
Overpaying for Reflecting Pool, RCI
Pricey Bus Stops, RCI
Disaster in Small NM Village, RCI
Trump 2.0 and the Beltway
Want a Trump Pardon? Call One of Hs Friends, Reuters
Prominent Biden Envoy Unloads on White House He Served, Politico
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Want a Trump Pardon? Call One of Hs Friends
Reuters
A Reuters investigation found nearly all the clemency decisions made by President Trump during his current term flouted longstanding Justice Department guidelines. In place of traditional rules, the White House relies on a network of influential advocates espousing pardons based on partisan, personal criteria.
Today, winning a pardon or other grant of presidential clemency routinely hinges upon an informal and highly personalized network of influencers and advocates appealing to Trump himself, according to a Reuters analysis of pardon, lobbying, and electoral records, as well as interviews with over 80 people familiar with clemency decisions during the president’s current term. Pardon applicants once had to comply with longstanding DOJ guidelines, such as a five-year wait after conviction or demonstrated remorse for their crimes. Reuters’ analysis shows that under Trump, clemency now is far more dependent upon access to his inner circle. That access, Reuters found, is enhanced when an applicant can craft a narrative that resonates with the president’s own sense of victimization, a sentiment he has regularly expressed since being indicted twice by federal prosecutors during his four years outside the White House.
This article reports that 96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants have gone to recipients who didn’t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests. Past presidents on occasion have sidestepped those rules before. But fewer than 1% of those who received clemency during the Biden administration and just 14% of recipients in Trump’s first presidency failed to meet the guidelines.
Billions in Drug Discounts. Where Did the Money Go?
Deep Background/Substack
In 1992, this article reports, Congress created the 340B Drug Pricing Program with a straightforward mission: to help safety-net hospitals and clinics serving low-income and uninsured patients stretch their resources further. Pharmaceutical manufacturers would sell outpatient drugs at steep discounts to qualifying providers, and the savings would flow to vulnerable patients. That’s not what happened.
More than 55,000 covered entities now participate in 340B. Purchases grew from roughly $6.6 billion in 2010 to approximately 10 times that level by 2023, with large health systems coming to dominate the program. Under the current structure, a covered hospital buys a drug at the discounted 340B price, administers it to a patient, then bills the insurer or government payer at or near the full reimbursement rate – keeping the spread. Federal law does not require these savings be passed on to patients or reported in any meaningful detail.
As a result, this article reports, the program has become a cash cow for 340B hospitals that buy discounted drugs and sell them at steep markups, sometimes more than ten times their acquisition cost.
Local Watchdogs Blowing Whistle on Gov. Spending
Wall Street Journal
A recent RCI Podcast featured an interview with investigative reporter Walter Curt about the rise of citizen sleuths – ordinary Americans who are using powerful AI tools to search federal government databases for indications of fraud and abuse. This article reports that a growing number of private watchdogs are performing the same analysis at the local level, focusing on government-issued credit cards.
Municipalities routinely grant p[urchasing]-cards to elected officials and other employees as a way to streamline business-related purchases. What’s being targeted now is purported misuse and lax oversight. Watchdogs’ findings range from claims of wasteful spending to alleged fraud. Some local officials have pushed back, though many say they have beefed up rules for p-cards. Flagged transactions made on the public dime include beer-can coolers in Daytona Beach, stuffed flounder in Elizabeth City, N.C., and Costco groceries in Connecticut. A county auditor in Florida recently told officials that in most cases “feeding oneself is a personal expense.” “The key is: Punish the abusers and make an example of them,” said Jessica Tillipman, a government-procurement expert at George Washington University Law School. “Because that’s the warning for all others.” She said she tells her students to imagine a purchase making headlines: “If this hit the news, would you be OK with it?”
This article reports that some audits ding public employees for breaking up purchases to evade single-transaction limits. “Anchorage’s internal auditor, in a March report on school district p-card purchases, highlighted spending at eateries like Moose’s Tooth Pub & Pizzeria, as well as a $2,937 fast-food purchase split into charges of $2,453 and $484. The report said the goal seemed to be to circumvent a $2,500 cap and add a $480 gratuity, or 20%, in a place where tipping isn’t customary.”
In a separate article, the Daily Signal reports that state auditors across the country were unable to verify billions of dollars in unemployment spending, Medicaid payments, and pension obligations in federally funded programs.
No Vacancy: Switzerland May Cap Its Population
New Yorker
As anger and some mayhem erupts across the UK in response to race and immigration, the even-keeled Swiss may soon embrace a far more orderly response to demographic change: On June 14th its citizens will vote on whether to become the only country in the world to officially cap its population, with a limit of 10 million people until 2050. While the move might please voters in Geneva, this article reports that it could face strong pushback from EU chieftains in Brussels.
The initiative, which was put forward by the Swiss People’s Party (S.V.P.) and in recent polls has been supported by as many as fifty-two per cent of respondents, would require the government to curb growth through two main measures. The first, triggered as soon as Switzerland exceeds 9.5 million inhabitants, would lead to restrictions in the areas of asylum and family reunification. If the population surpasses ten million for two consecutive years, the second measure would kick in, requiring the termination of the Free Movement of Persons agreement, which allows citizens of the European Union to work, study, and live in Switzerland (and vice versa). This move would rupture Switzerland’s relations with the E.U., its closest partner in trade and security. “The whole package of bilateral agreements would be at stake,” Michael Siegenthaler, a labor economist at the public university E.T.H. Zurich, said. “It’s quite likely that the European Union would cancel all of them.”
This article reports that a population ceiling is more or less unprecedented; the closest comparison might be conservation laws that limit human settlement in ecologically fragile places like the Galápagos Islands.
Epstein's Victims Now Besieged by Haters & Trolls
Reuters
The abuse didn’t stop with Jeffrey Epstein. This article reports that at least 23 women who accused the late financier of sexual misdeeds and crimes have faced threats, harassment and intimidation by trolls, haters and other foes – some after speaking publicly about their abuse, others after their identities were exposed in the Justice Department’s Epstein files.
When Marina Lacerda told the world that Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused her when she was 14, the threats began almost immediately. In September, she and other accusers appeared at a news conference pressing for the release of the Epstein files. “She’ll be unalived,” a stranger wrote under a YouTube video of a news report about Lacerda that day. “She really should’ve stayed quiet. RIP.” The harassment intensified when Lacerda’s name appeared at least 46 times in unredacted Justice Department documents months later. Online, she was called a liar and a prostitute who deserved what happened to her. Her 12-year-old daughter was taunted at school by classmates asking if she was Epstein’s child. Today, Lacerda lives with her daughter in a gated community and sleeps with a handgun on her nightstand.
Drawing on interviews with other women, this article reports that “the harassment took many forms. Strangers photographed women’s homes. Unfamiliar cars lingered outside and sped off when confronted. Some women received threats of violence, including calls from people claiming to know where they lived. Several say they no longer leave home alone.”
