President Trump on Tuesday continued to assail a report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services outlining the severe equipment shortages facing the country’s hospitals, dismissing the document as a “Fake Dossier.”
The HHS survey of hospitals across the country found that hospitals’ ability to combat the coronavirus pandemic is being impeded by shortages of tests, protective gear, staff and space, as well as inconsistent government advice.
“Why didn’t the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!” Trump tweeted, in an apparent comparison to the now-infamous dossier alleging links between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Despite Trump’s focus on her work during the Obama administration, Christi A. Grimm, the HHS principal deputy inspector general who issued the report on the country’s hospitals, began working at the Office of the Inspector General in 1999, according to her official biography. And the CDC has estimated that more than 12,000 people died during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
