Intelligence Warned White House of Pandemic in January

While facing the height of impeachment, President Donald Trump was delivering calm and optimistic messages to the American people in January and February as intelligence agencies were warning him in classified briefings the coronavirus was going to emerge as a global pandemic.

A U.S. official told The Washington Post , intelligence agencies "have been warning on this since January" to the White House, Congress, and the president.

"Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn't get him to do anything about it," the source told the Post. "The system was blinking red."

The White House reminds Americans, the media and Democrats were focused on impeaching the president at that time, while the president was weighing the potential coronavirus impact in the U.S.

"President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth, and safety of the American people — and did so, while the media and Democrats chose to only focus on the stupid politics of a sham illegitimate impeachment," Hogan Gidley told the Post in a statement. "It's more than disgusting, despicable and disgraceful for cowardly unnamed sources to attempt to rewrite history — it's a clear threat to this great country."

At Friday's coronavirus task force briefing, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar mentioned Jan. 3 as the date the coronavirus epidemic in China had been communicated to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Chinese colleagues.

Per the post, Azar struggled to get the coronavirus message to resonate with the president and did not speak with him about the virus until Jan. 18, sources said.

Sources told the Post, intelligence officials ramped up their warnings in classified briefings by the end of January, as the impeachment attempt of Trump was wrapping up in the Senate (Jan. 16-Feb. 5).

"In January, there was obviously a lot of chatter," the source told the Post.

Shortly after that time, at least four U.S. lawmakers had received classified briefings on the coronavirus and then proceeded to sell off stock, according to reports. The market has lost around 30% of its total value since.

Trump was initially dismissive of the impact of the coronavirus because reports of infections in the U.S. had been minimal, sources told the Post.

The White House Domestic Policy Council chief Joe Grogan warned in a Jan. 27 meeting the virus would pose a threat to Trump's re-election, per the post, despite the fact he had not yet been acquitted of impeachment.

Grogan also warned in early February, around the time of acquittal, the U.S. was going to have a shortage of coronavirus tests, sources who spoke directly to Grogan told the Post.

Publicly, Trump had shared calming and optimistic messages to the American people, as the Post noted.

• "I think the virus is going to be — it's going to be fine," Trump said Feb. 10.

• "We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it," he said four days later. "It's like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we're in very good shape."

• "I think it's going to work out fine," Trump said Feb. 19. "I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus."
• "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," Trump tweeted five days later. "Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"

Meanwhile, assistant secretary for preparedness and response Robert Kadlec was warning the president of the "serious" threat that "was very alarming," a source told the Post.

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