Trump Tower officials under investigation for misusing COVID vaccine program designed for hard-hit communities: report

According to a report from Block Club Chicago, the managers of Donald Trump's Chicago Trump Tower are being investigated for jumping their employees to the front of the line for COVID-19 vaccinations by misusing a city program designed to help out the harder-hit poorer areas of Chicago.

Reported by Kelly Bauer, Stephanie Lulay and Bob Chiarito, the report states that Department of Public Health officials are looking into how employees of the luxury tower were allowed to get vaccinations using the Protect Chicago Plus program in a part of town that was not included as a designated area by health officials.

According to the three reporters, "The Protect Chicago Plus campaign is meant to target residents of 15 community areas on the city's South and West sides hit hard by COVID-19. The Downtown area, where Trump Tower is located, is not among them."

In an interview, a spokesperson for the health department stated, "We're looking into it. I will say the Protect Chicago Plus program is intended for those designated communities, so we will be looking to find out what happened."

The report states that a vaccination event occurred last week and was held after a Trump manager wrote that a "medical facility that is 'part of the Protect Chicago Plus network' identified and contacted Trump Tower."

However, the three reporters wrote the tower and its staff do not fall under the guidelines of the program.

"A health department spokesman confirmed to Block Club hotel employees shouldn't be vaccinated yet under current vaccination guidelines. City officials there aren't aware of the March 10 vaccination event described by the executive and are looking into it, the spokesman said," they wrote adding, "While it's possible employees could individually be vaccinated in Chicago for other reasons — like if they have a second job where they've been deemed a frontline worker, if they're 65 or older or if they live in a Protect Chicago Plus community — those criteria would not apply to the Trump Tower organization vaccinating a broad swath of employees Downtown."

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