The Full Belmonte, 12/30/2022
Russian Missile Barrage Staggers Ukraine’s Air Defenses
Cruise missiles and exploding drones from Iran swept across the skies of Ukraine, wreaking havoc and once again knocking out power.
“KYIV, Ukraine — A swarm of drones and a volley of cruise missiles rocked towns and cities across Ukraine on Thursday, the biggest assault in weeks and the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated aerial duels pitting Russia’s evolving tactics against Ukraine’s growing arsenal of air defense weapons.
At dawn in Kyiv, the capital, puffy contrails from missiles or air defense weapons lingered in the sky and fragments from successful intercepts rained down on a playground and on private homes.
Russia, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, had been ‘saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year.’ Ukraine’s air defenses were at times overwhelmed.
Iranian-made exploding drones, which Russia began acquiring last summer, were launched in a first wave, apparently to bog down air defenses before the cruise missile strikes, the Ukrainian air force said. It said its defense forces had shot down 54 of 69 cruise missiles and had also knocked out drones.
The attack appeared likely to prompt new calls from Ukrainian officials for more Western air-defense systems, given that the growing arsenal of advanced weapons sent by Kyiv’s allies has failed to stop Moscow’s debilitating attacks on energy infrastructure that have caused widespread power outages as the country faces freezing winter temperatures….” Read more at New York Times
Pelé, the Global Face of Soccer, Dies at 82
Pelé, who was declared a national treasure in his native Brazil, achieved worldwide celebrity and helped popularize the sport in the United States.
Dec. 29, 2022
“Pelé, one of soccer’s greatest players and a transformative figure in 20th-century sports who achieved a level of global celebrity few athletes have known, died on Thursday in São Paulo. He was 82.
His death was confirmed by his manager, Joe Fraga. The Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo said the cause was multiple organ failure, the result of the progression of colon cancer.
Pelé had been receiving treatment for cancer in recent years, and he entered the hospital several weeks ago for treatment of a variety of health issues, including a respiratory infection.
A national hero in his native Brazil, Pelé was beloved around the world — by the very poor, among whom he was raised; the very rich, in whose circles he traveled; and just about everyone who ever saw him play.
‘Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory,’ Andy Warhol once said. ‘Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.’
Celebrated for his peerless talent and originality on the field, Pelé (pronounced peh-LAY) also endeared himself to fans with his sunny personality and his belief in the power of soccer — football to most of the world — to connect people across dividing lines of race, class and nationality.
He won three World Cup tournaments with Brazil and 10 league titles with Santos, his club team, as well as the 1977 North American Soccer League championship with the New York Cosmos. Having come out of retirement at 34, he spent three seasons with the Cosmos on a crusade to popularize soccer in the United States.
Before his final game, in October 1977 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Pelé took the microphone on a podium at the center of the field, his father and Muhammad Ali beside him, and exhorted a crowd of more than 75,000.
‘Say with me three times now,’ he declared, ‘for the kids: Love! Love! Love!’
In his 21-year career, Pelé — born Edson Arantes do Nascimento — scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 professional matches, including 77 goals for the Brazilian national team.
Many of those goals became legendary, but Pelé’s influence on the sport went well beyond scoring. He helped create and promote what he later called ‘o jogo bonito’ — the beautiful game — a style that valued clever ball control, inventive pinpoint passing and a voracious appetite for attacking. Pelé not only played it better than anyone; he also championed it around the world.
Among his athletic assets was a remarkable center of gravity; as he ran, swerved, sprinted or backpedaled, his midriff seemed never to move, while his hips and his upper body swiveled around it.
He could accelerate, decelerate or pivot in a flash. Off-balance or not, he could lash the ball accurately with either foot. Relatively small, at 5 feet 8 inches, he could nevertheless leap exceptionally high, often seeming to hang in the air to put power behind a header.
Like other sports, soccer has evolved. Today, many of its stars can execute acrobatic shots or rapid-fire passing sequences. But in his day, Pelé’s playmaking and scoring skills were stunning….” Read more at New York Times
Santos, a Suburban House and $11,000 in Campaign Payments for ‘Rent’
Representative-elect George Santos, under scrutiny after fabricating much of his résumé, also spent campaign funds on $40,000 worth of air travel.
By Grace Ashford and Dana Rubinstein
“The company was called Cleaner 123, and over the course of four months, it received nearly $11,000 from the campaign of George Santos, the representative-elect from New York who appears to have invented whole swaths of his life story.
The expenditures were listed as ‘apartment rental for staff’ on Mr. Santos’s campaign disclosure forms and gave the address of a modest suburban house on Long Island. But one neighbor said Mr. Santos himself had been living there for months, and two others said that they had seen Mr. Santos and his husband coming and going, a possible violation of the rule prohibiting the use of campaign funds for personal expenses.
The payments to Cleaner 123 were among a litany of unusual disbursements documented in Mr. Santos’s campaign filings that experts say could warrant further scrutiny. There are also dozens of expenses pegged at $199.99 — one cent below the threshold at which federal law requires receipts.
The travel expenses include more than $40,000 for air travel, a number so exorbitant that it resembles the campaign filings of party leaders in Congress, as opposed to a newly elected congressman who is still introducing himself to local voters.
It is not known if the spending was in fact illegal, or merely unusual. Federal and local prosecutors said this week that they would begin inquiries into Mr. Santos’s finances and background.
Mr. Santos, a Republican, was elected in the Third Congressional District, a consequential swing district in Queens and Long Island, after a failed bid for the same seat in 2020. He has come under intense scrutiny after a New York Times investigation revealed that he misrepresented details of his education, work history and property ownership, along with a previously undisclosed criminal charge in Brazil.
The story also raised questions about Mr. Santos’s financial circumstances, which disclosures show have improved drastically since 2020, when he reported earning just $55,000 a year.
Mr. Santos has declined to be interviewed by The Times. But in the 10 days since The Times’s story was published, he has admitted to a stunning string of falsehoods. Earlier this week, he told The New York Post that he denied any criminal conduct, saying: ‘My sins here are embellishing my résumé.’
Late Thursday, Joe Murray, a lawyer for Mr. Santos, said in a statement that there had been some money spent ‘unwisely’ by a firm that had been fired by the campaign more than a year earlier, but he said that all expenditures were legal. The payments to Cleaner 123 were for legitimate expenses on behalf of staffers relocating to the district, he said, as were hotels booked to lodge staff members and people assisting the campaign.
‘Campaign expenditures for staff members including travel, lodging, and meals are normal expenses of any competent campaign. The suggestion that the Santos campaign engaged in any irresponsible spending of campaign funds is just ludicrous,’ Mr. Murray said.
The representative-elect is set to be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3, when Republicans begin a new term with a slim four-seat majority in the House. While local Republican leaders have condemned Mr. Santos’s dissembling, those in Washington have been largely silent.
Questions arose about Mr. Santos’s residence when a reporter attempted to reach him at the Whitestone, Queens, address listed on his voter registration. Mr. Santos’s former landlord there said that he had moved out in August.
Mr. Santos told The Post that he was living in Huntington, on Long Island, at his sister’s home. But court documents, as well as interviews with neighbors and a doorman, show that she resides in Elmhurst, Queens.
Campaign disclosures, however, show that Mr. Santos paid Cleaner 123, which lists the house in Huntington as its address, nearly $11,000 in rent and a deposit. When reached by phone, a representative from Cleaner 123 confirmed that it was a cleaning company, but hung up before answering why it had received rent payments from Mr. Santos.
Many questions remain about Mr. Santos’s campaign expenditures: It is not clear which expenditures were made on behalf of staff, versus for the candidate himself. The Federal Election Commission regulations say that campaigns are not allowed to pay personal living expenses for their candidates, including rent or utilities. Several campaign finance experts said that paying rent for staff was unusual and could be a violation, though they said that the F.E.C. rarely took action in such cases.
Mr. Santos’s campaign filings show other irregularities as well: He had listed a flood of expenses under $200 — more than 800 items in total — a number that far exceeded those of candidates for similar office. More than 30 of those payments came in just below the limit at $199.99, expenses listed for office supplies, restaurants and Ubers, among other things. While F.E.C. rules urge candidates to try to save receipts for purchases below $200, they are required to keep them for all expenditures above that threshold.
Paul S. Ryan, an election law expert, said that the expenditures could be an effort to hide illegal use of campaign funds, given the leeway with reporting receipts below $200. If so, he said, Mr. Santos’s attempt to hide the pattern could put him in further legal trouble, adding: ‘I consider deployment of this tactic strong evidence that the violation of law was knowing and willful — and therefore meeting the requirement for criminal prosecution.’
Unusually for a candidate who was relatively new to politics, Mr. Santos also appears to have used his campaign accounts to fund trips across the country, along with local hotel stays, according to a review of his campaign expenditures by The Times.
Over the course of his campaign, Mr. Santos spent $30,000 on hotels, $40,000 on airfare and $14,000 on car services — and campaign records suggest he also retained a campaign vehicle.
The spending was funded by a campaign war chest of more than $3 million amassed by four fund-raising committees during the 2022 campaign cycle. The money came from small-dollar donors, longtime Republican contributors on Long Island and elsewhere and the campaign committees of other Republican candidates. The biggest givers lavished Mr. Santos with the maximum allowable amounts, in some cases directly, in others via a Republican super PAC or the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
A hefty chunk of the total came in the form of a $700,000 loan from Mr. Santos himself.
The source of Mr. Santos’s wealth has been surrounded by some mystery: He has said on financial disclosure statements that his company, the Devolder Organization, is worth more than a million dollars; the statements also show that he earned millions between salary and dividends over the past two years. But the disclosures do not name any of the clients who helped Mr. Santos earn such a fortune — an omission that could pose legal problems for Mr. Santos, campaign finance experts say.
Two former aides, who requested to remain anonymous because they didn’t want to be publicly associated with Mr. Santos, described growing concern during the campaign that the candidate was too focused on spending money frivolously and not focused enough on the nuts and bolts of winning the election.
One consultant described the spending as a part of a persona Mr. Santos sought to build: as a man whose success had let him trade his humble beginnings for a life of high-end travel and fine dining.
Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, said the spending was atypical. ‘Usually a congressional candidate tries spending as little as possible for their own accommodations and travel, because they need that money for campaign purposes,’ he said. ‘George Santos appears to be just living a lavish lifestyle for himself.’
By way of comparison, Nick LaLota, the Republican representative-elect from the First Congressional District, in Long Island’s Suffolk County, spent roughly $900 on hotel stays, $3,000 on airfare and $900 on taxi services, according to his campaign filings. Sean Patrick Maloney, the outgoing head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who lost to a Republican in the Hudson Valley, spent just $8,000 on air travel, according to his filings.
The $30,000 Mr. Santos’s campaign spent on hotels and Airbnb expenditures included stays in Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, Florida, California, Kansas, Michigan, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and in New York itself. Records indicate his campaign favored the Hyatt and Hilton hotel brands, expensing stays at Virginia’s Hilton Alexandria Old Town, Florida’s Hilton Melbourne, the Hilton West Palm Beach, the Hyatt Regency Orlando and the Hyatt Place West Palm Beach.
In New York, his campaign booked hotel stays at the SoHo Grand in Manhattan and the Garden City Hotel and the Inn at Great Neck, both on Long Island.
Mr. Santos’s campaign also paid for dozens of meals, including at high-end restaurants such as the Breakers in Palm Beach and the Capital Grille steakhouse in New York. He spent roughly $14,000 at an upscale Italian restaurant called Il Bacco, in the Little Neck neighborhood of Queens.
The restaurant’s owner, Joe Oppedisano, who donated $6,500 to Mr. Santos’s campaign and related PACs and whose 2020 survival in a plane crash made tabloid headlines, was unavailable for comment, according to the woman who answered the phone at the restaurant on Thursday afternoon.” Read more at New York Times
Democrats Outpace Trump in Seating Federal Judges, With 97 Confirmed
The Senate’s top two Democrats say they will continue their push to fill vacancies in 2023, but activists warn that under current rules, it will be hard to keep up the pace.
By Carl Hulse
“WASHINGTON — Democrats fell just short of an ambitious goal of confirming 100 new federal judges as time ran out on the 117th Congress, but they are optimistic they can continue to reshape the courts over the final two years of President Biden’s term.
The Senate’s top two Democrats say their ability to outpace the concerted Republican judicial push of President Donald J. Trump’s first two years, with a total of 97 judges seated, was especially noteworthy considering they did it with a 50-50 Senate, an evenly divided Judiciary Committee and little cooperation from most Republicans.
And the personal and professional backgrounds of the judges they confirmed were markedly different from the past. The Senate named scores of women and people of color to the courts, many with specialties in defense and civil rights work as opposed to the corporate law partners and prosecutors who were the norm in previous administrations of both parties….” Read more at New York Times
Jan. 6 Transcripts Detail Failures in Surveillance and National Guard Response
The latest batch of transcripts shed light on how threats before Jan. 6 went unheeded and what led to an hourslong delay of the National Guard deployment to the Capitol.
By Luke Broadwater, Maggie Haberman, Catie Edmondson and Stephanie Lai
“The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol released on Thursday 19 more transcripts of its interviews, bringing its total number of transcripts published to about 120.
So far, the committee has added details to the public’s understanding of how witnesses stymied parts of the panel’s inquiry; how Trump-aligned lawyers allegedly tried to steer witness testimony; how panicked lawmakers tried to persuade former President Donald J. Trump to call off the mob; and how Mr. Trump considered “blanket pardons” for those charged.
The committee is rushing to publish hundreds more interviews before Jan. 3, when Republicans will take control of the House. Here are some takeaways from the hundreds of pages of transcripts released this week, including details of police intelligence failures before the Capitol attack and insight into the delay in the response of the National Guard….” Read more at New York Times
Southwest has struggled to right itself this week after an operational meltdown grounded planes and stranded passengers and luggage.
PHOTO: MICHAEL CIAGLO/GETTY IMAGES
Southwest’s recovery from its holiday-weekend meltdown is no longer up in the air.
“The carrier expects to return to its full flight schedule tomorrow and is busy resuming ticket sales, rebuilding crew schedules and returning lost baggage as it recovers from last week’s severe winter storm. The airline said it would reimburse stranded customers for many types of reasonable expenses after it canceled close to 16,000 flights since last Thursday. Several other carriers said they’d cap fares to accommodate travelers making last-minute bookings, but because it’s an expensive time of year to fly and many flights are already almost full, airline-industry experts said not to expect deals.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
The FDA “inappropriately” collaborated with Biogen before approving its Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm in 2021, according to a new report from House Democrats.
The drug maker’s internal documents, obtained through a congressional investigation, showed that the company expected pushback from patients and payers but priced its drug at $56,000 to maximize profit. The probe also found that the FDA and Biogen had an ‘atypical’ number of meetings, calls or substantive emails—at least 115 over the course of a year. ‘Biogen stands by the integrity of the actions we have taken,’ the company said. The FDA said that its job is to interact frequently with companies to ensure it has adequate information and that the agency has started implementing lawmakers’ recommendations.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Biogen priced Aduhelm at $56,000 to maximize profit, the congressional report found.PHOTO: POOL PHOTO BY JESSICA RINALDI
Restaurant Group Sues to Block California Fast-Food Wage Law
Industry coalition tries to stop implementation of the law while state verifies signatures on petition that would postpone it
Efforts to block the law have drawn support from restaurant companies including McDonald’s.PHOTO: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
“A restaurant-industry group sued a group of California state officials Thursday, alleging that they plan to illegally begin implementing a new law that would set minimum hourly wages for fast-food workers.
The group, including franchisee and restaurant business associations called Save Local Restaurants, said it filed the lawsuit in California Superior Court after the state’s Department of Industrial Relations informed them that the law would go into effect Jan. 1.
The restaurant group said in early December that it had submitted a petition with more than one million voter signatures to require Californians to vote on the measure in the 2024 election, a step that would put the law on hold until then. The lawsuit claims that California plans to implement the law until the secretary of state’s office verifies that the restaurant coalition submitted a minimum of about 623,000 valid signatures on its petition, which hasn’t yet occurred.
The restaurant coalition claims the law shouldn’t go into effect while the secretary of state’s office is in the process of verifying the signatures….” Read more at Wall Street Journal
U.S. mortgage rates recorded their largest increase in any calendar year in 2022, a consequence of the Fed’s aggressive inflation-taming moves.
“The average rate on the standard 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.42% from 6.27% last week, according to mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac’s lenders survey. It was 3.11% at the same time last year. Meanwhile, filings for U.S. unemployment benefits rose only modestly last week and held near prepandemic levels, the Labor Department said; that suggests the labor market remains historically tight. U.S. stocks rallied, with the S&P 500 up 1.7%, the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite 2.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 1%.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Dems' statehouse momentum
Data: Ballotpedia. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios. ("Seats gained" includes those that were vacant, or held before the election by members who didn't identify as D or R.)
“Democrats' unexpected strength in midterms extended to state legislatures, where they picked up seats in 21 states and took control of five chambers from the GOP, Axios' Stef Kight writes from Ballotpedia data.
Why it matters: State legislatures have vast power over abortion laws, voting rules, gun policies and other issues with real-life impact.
What we're watching: The stakes are raised, as the Supreme Court considers a case that could eliminate checks on legislatures' power over redistricting and elections.
State of play: Republicans currently have more state trifectas — veto-proof majorities, chambers, and overall state legislative seats — than Democrats.
In November, Democrats managed to flip more chambers, earn more state trifectas and pick up seats in more states controlled by the opposing party — while also matching Republicans for the number of new veto-proof majorities.
By the numbers: Democrats flipped four chambers — both Michigan chambers, the Minnesota Senate and Pennsylvania House. Despite still having more Republicans than Democrats, a bipartisan coalition will now serve as the majority in Alaska's upper chamber.
Adding in gubernatorial wins, Democrats won state trifectas in Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota. They lost their Nevada trifecta, while Republicans lost their state control in Arizona.
Republicans' biggest gains came in two already deeply red state legislatures — West Virginia and Florida, where they picked up 17 and 14 seats, respectively. Republicans now have supermajorities in both states.
Republicans also picked up eight seats in the Wisconsin state legislature, though they fell just short of a supermajority.” Read more at Axios
“Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grishamtold the House Jan. 6 committee that former President Trump wanted to fire the White House chief usher for helping the Bidens move in. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Says He Will End Illegal Amazon Deforestation
Rainforest destruction surged under predecessor Jair Bolsonaro
At a recent U.N. climate summit, Braziian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva drew praise for his stated commitment to better protect the Amazon rainforest. PHOTO: TON MOLINA/ZUMA PRESS
“MARAÃ, Brazil—Dismayed by illegal logging and fishing near his Amazon River village, Alzanir de Souza organized a flotilla of small boats so 200 relatives and neighbors could make the 18-hour voyage in October to the nearest town to vote in Brazil’s presidential election.
Their support helped Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing former president who has said he would work to better protect the Amazon, defeat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Mr. Bolsonaro’s right-wing government had slashed funding and staffing at environmental agencies, environmentalists and employees of those agencies said, fueling a significant increase in deforestation. ‘We have put our faith in this new government,’ said Mr. de Souza, who manages a fishing cooperative.
So have many others who want to see stronger protection for the Amazon. Mr. da Silva, who will take the oath of office Sunday, received thunderous applause last month at the U.N. climate summit in Egypt, where presidents and environmentalists lauded him as a the rainforest ‘s potential savior.
‘We will do whatever it takes to have zero deforestation,’ he said in his first big overseas speech since the election.
Still, Mr. da Silva will face budget constraints, stemming in part from his commitments to expand social spending. Meanwhile, allies of Mr. Bolsonaro, who control most state governments in the Amazon region as well as 40% of Brazil’s congress, want the new president to focus on job creation rather than forest protection.
The BR-319 highway running from the Amazonian capital of Manaus southwest through the jungle has been improved under the government of Jair Bolsonaro.PHOTO: MICHAEL DANTAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Electoral data show that many of these politicians received campaign funding from business interests connected to farming, mining and logging companies that environmentalists say have benefited from the outgoing president’s drive to roll back protections in the forest.
‘It’s an economic equation,’ said Virgilio Viana, a former government environmental official who is close to Mr. da Silva, and is now the director of the Amazonas Sustainability Foundation, an Amazonian-based group that works with rainforest communities. ‘There are a lot of electoral strongholds in the Amazon where politicians benefit from deforestation, land invasions, and illegal logging.’
He said Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies argued that environmental regulations held back the Amazon as other regions progressed, a message that had resonance among farmers, loggers and miners. While Mr. Bolsonaro narrowly lost his bid for reelection, he easily outpolled Mr. da Silva in the Amazon region.
Eduardo Taveira, the top environmental official in the state of Amazonas where the governor is aligned with Mr. Bolsonaro, points out that more than half the people in the region live below the poverty line. To secure cooperation from state and local officials, Mr. da Silva must focus on bolstering the economy and creating jobs.
‘You can’t just think about environmental protection,’ said Mr. Taveira, who noted that 30 million people live in the Brazilian Amazon. ‘Agribusiness is now a key part of the economy in this region, and you need to be thinking about that for the future.’
Some political analysts see Mr. da Silva, widely known as Lula, as open to this message. He is a skilled negotiator who often tries to please everyone, they say, though not always successfully….” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“India will reintroduce mandatory Covid-19 tests for flyers coming from a number of major Asian nations, including China, amid fears of a fresh wave of infections hitting the world’s second-most populated country. But European health officials called restrictions on travelers from China unjustified, pushing back against a growing list of countries introducing tests as an unprecedented Covid wave sweeps over the Asian nation. Here are the places imposing new rules.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“For Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and many of the other billionaires who make up the 500 richest people on the planet (as listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index), 2022 was an ugly year. Together, they all managed to lose $1.4 trillion. But amid the bloodbath, some secretive families and pro sports owners emerged relatively unscathed.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Clockwise from upper left, Roman Abramovich, Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, Gautam Adani, Mark Zuckerberg, Changpeng Zhao. Source: Bloomberg; Getty Images
After Half a Century, Fauci Prepares for Life After Government
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, whose last day as a federal employee is Saturday, plans to write a memoir and wants to encourage people to go into public service.
Dec. 29, 2022
“WASHINGTON — The walls in Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s home office are adorned with portraits of him, drawn and painted by some of his many fans. The most striking one is by the singer Joan Baez. The two of them, he said, ‘have become pretty good friends over the years.’
Dr. Fauci seemed a little uncomfortable with people knowing about the pictures. He said that previously, when they were captured on camera, the ‘far right’ attacked him as an ‘egomaniac.’ If someone goes to the trouble of sending him a portrait of himself, he said, he would ‘feel like I’m disrespecting them’ if he discarded it.
It was a revealing glimpse into the psyche of America’s most loved and hated doctor as he wraps up more than half a century of government service at the National Institutes of Health. After Saturday, Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser and for the past 38 years the director of the N.I.H.’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will no longer be a federal employee.
Dr. Fauci, who turned 82 on Christmas Eve, said he may be retiring, but he is not going away. He hopes to do some public speaking, become affiliated with a university and treat patients if it has a medical center. He intends to write a memoir, he said, and he wants to encourage people to pursue careers in science, medicine and public service.
Republicans, who will take control of the House early next month, will see to it that he does not slip out of the public eye. They have promised to investigate his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and to call him to Capitol Hill to testify. He says he has every intention of showing up and has nothing to hide.
From the AIDS epidemic to Covid-19, Dr. Fauci has been the public face of American science for decades, advising seven presidents along the way. In late November, The New York Times spoke to him at his home office in Washington about his career and his plans for the future. This interview has been edited and condensed….” Read more at New York Times