Trump White House donated 8,700 ventilators to other nations.Officials now don't know where many are

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

The Trump administration spent $200 million to send more than 8,700 ventilators to countries around the world last year, with no clear criteria for determining who should get them and no way to keep track of where many ended up, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The effort, driven by the Trump White House, was an unusual top-down initiative with little decision-making by experts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which carried out the administration’s orders. Former president Donald Trump last year boasted about U.S. success in manufacturing the machines and declared the U.S. “the king of ventilators," promising donations to foreign countries.

Staff on the White House’s National Security Council communicated to the aid agency “U.S. government decisions regarding ventilator donations, including the recipient countries, quantities, and manufacturers,” the GAO found. “These ventilators were not in State or AID’s strategic plan,” said David Gootnick, director of international affairs and trade at GAO. “They could not articulate for us the criteria they used for what ventilators went to what countries.”

The GAO was unable to identify how the Trump White House made its decisions on ventilator allocations, and White House officials did not respond to the watchdog’s questions, which came before President Biden took office last week. For instance, while Sri Lanka had just three new coronavirus cases per day when it received 200 ventilators, Bangladesh, which had 1,409 new cases, received just 100 of the machines, the report found. Relatively wealthy recipients such as Italy and St. Kitts and Nevis also received ventilator donations, as did tiny island nations such as Nauru and Kiribati, which have yet to report a single coronavirus case.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/01/29/usaid-trump-ventilators-watchdog/

---

Full headline: Trump White House donated 8,700 ventilators to other nations. Officials now don’t know where many of them are, watchdog finds

Friday news dump.

[Irish_Dem]

1. More undocumented high demand items means black market. nt

[usaf-vet]

16. Trump always looks for the KICKBACKS. That is the market force he uses. Obscure follow the $$$$.

You can't know what the Trump cut was if you can't follow the distribution and the money. It's not a bug in the system it's a built-in. feature.

[Irish_Dem]

17. Exactly. All these high demand items with no paper trail.

Not incompetence, but design.

[Snoopy 7]

44. Nope

You have to remember, I assume you already knew, that trump owed millions to China banks. When the pandemic started in the US our PPE & Ventilators were being sent to China. trump owed millions to China then and we haven't heard a peep from China since they received the pandemic tools. trump sold out our country to anyone he owes money to China and Russia are just his largest lenders...

[Snoopy 7]

45. omission

Sorry I forgot to add my post:
https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-owes-tens-of-millions-to-the-bank-of-china-and-the-loan-is-due-soon/

[Irish_Dem]

46. Black market would include China, Russia, Saudi

Paying off debt with illegal high value items happens all the time on the black market.

[Grasswire2]

2. Jared.

We knew that at the time. Same as he has done with weapons.

Total grift and corruption.

All for his own profit.

And maybe with the other perceived benefit of killing more Americans.

[CrispyQ]

9. That's what I think too.

I'll never forget "our stockpile."

[Fritz Walter]

12. Not entirely for his own profit

I see Iskanka pulling his strings, positioning herself for a run at future political offices. Having so many grateful leaders of other nations is all part of grooming major donors to a PAC.

Grifters gotta grift, and what greater opportunity — for a family of grifters — than a global pandemic?

[oasis]

26. Jared Kushner's unchecked import export scams will come to light. nt

[C Moon]

31. Yes. I recall reading that here and saying it myself.

We all knew he was working on making money off the demand for PPE.

[bdamomma]

42. Jared knows

maybe Miller too. Follow the money. They should all be arrested.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Wouldn't be surprised to learn that rumpco donated a bunch

to Atlantis. King Neptune gave thanks, quoted as saying, ‘glub GLUB!’

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I think Nemo and Dory know where they are

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

4. Well, so much for "America First"...

unless it meant America first in number of COVID deaths and death rate.

As usual with the Trump administration, trying to figure out how they did things is a total cluster f*ck.

[Bengus81]

5. Sure he did...just like the $6 million he was "donating" to veterans groups??

He never gave a penny of it until he was BUSTED for not doing so. That POS would have pocketed every cent if reporters hadn't hounded him.

[underpants]

7. How were they shipped? How big are the boxes? How much $ can you fit in each box?

[BumRushDaShow]

8. ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/general-motors-ventec-deliver-first-batch-ventilators-ahead-schedule-n1183956

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Corruption at the highest levels of trump's admin. We desperately needed these and they donated

them despite our need?

[tiptonic]

11. How much

How much of the money, went in Benedict donalds, mafia pockets?

[BrightKnight]

13. follow the money - nt

[Botany]

14. I would look @ Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China. You know the places that Trump and Kushner owe ...

.... money to.

[LiberalArkie]

15. The main thing was that Trump did not want them in the U.S.

[Retrograde]

18. The main thing TrumpCo wanted was cash in its pockets

How many of these "donations" came with a kickback - not necessarily monetary - to Jared and the spawn? Why do you think they tried to start a bidding war among the states?

I regret being old because I think it will take longer than my natural life for all the shenanigans of the last four years to be uncovered.

[sarcasmo]

19. Trump sold 8700 ventilators.

[DENVERPOPS]

34. Does that figure out to

23,000 bucks per ventilator????????Is my math correct??????? Trailer Trash Barbie and her husband Jared probably got a commission and handling fee of 20K on each one, with the 20K going to offshore accounts for TRUMP INC........

That Grand Theft is probably peanuts compared to all that those two were able to Grift........

I remember one contract for ventilators that was paid up front to a company that doesn't even manufacture anything, for 500 million bucks,.....and the best part, is that the delivery date is five years from now......

This so called "RepubliCON Party" is BY FAR the most thoroughly corrupted political party in the history of our nation........

[monkeyman1]

20. ask the son in law?

the Jared in charge c-19 response & so was Pence ? dumb an dumber to the rescue !!!!

[mudstump]

21. Look in Russia...

[FakeNoose]

22. Wait ... he DONATED them? Chump never gives anything away

Chump must have sold these to the highest bidder. The money went straight into his own pocket.
Meanwhile our US hospitals and clinics are desperate for vents and PPEs.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. Dan DeVito

is a national treaasure!

[BobTheSubgenius]

23. If the backdrop to this story wasn't tragedy draped with criminal negligence...

...some of it would actually be comical. A country with 3 new cases a day gets 200? A country with 1400 cases a day gets 100? Countries without a single case to this day got some?

You just can't make up this kind of incompetence tinged with gallows humour.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. Probably due to whoever was willing to

[Ferrets are Cool]

25. Send him a bill.

It can be ONE more he ignores.

[Hekate]

27. I'm pretty sure his pals in autocratic countries were thrilled with the donation to their private...

...hospitals for princes and oligarchs.

It is shocking how cynical the past 5 years have made me.

[DENVERPOPS]

35. For me

It's been since a few months before HWBush/Cheney/Rumsfeld fixed the election for Reagan........

[judesedit]

29. They're probably in his garage at Merry Lago. The just went the roundabout way.

So he can sell them top dollar in an extreme emergency

[Escurumbele]

30. They sold them, they profited from it...I can't think of anything good these people may have done

They came to power to pilferage, they did not come to govern and that is why they left so many offices without representatives, and brought in corrupt and incompetent people who willingly looked the other way and facilitated the corruption.

The less people who saw the fraud and corruption the better to keep secret their Machiavelli deeds, that is why they never appointed anyone to some of the positions in government.

[cstanleytech]

32. "no way to keep track of where many ended up" Why do I suspect someone related to Trump sold them?

[poli-junkie]

33. Putin-style kleptocracy

[Warpy]

36. Probably the Russian ventilators they couldn't get to work with 120v AC

here in the US. The innards were a little to delicate to accept cheap fixes so they were largely useless.

[dalton99a]

37. Check Kushner's bank accounts

[benld74]

38. Ventilator emoluments doncha know,,,

[tanyev]

39. "an unusual top-down initiative with little decision-making by experts"

Goddamit, WAPO, it was a giant clusterfuck of corruption and incompetence. SAY IT!!!

[keithbvadu2]

40. Trump gave broken ventilators to California... and played with lives for politics.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-cory-gardner-colorado-ventilations-gop-favor_n_5e8fde1ec5b6d641a6bc610d

Trump ‘Playing Politics’ With Lives As FEMA Grabs Ventilators, Lawmaker Charges

[Historic NY]

41. Go look in Kushners Garage.

[BumRushDaShow]

43. The one at

666 5th Ave would probably be big enough.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

47. Sold them all for a tidy profit