'Tragic' failures of Jared Kushner's COVID-19 efforts outlined in damning whistleblower complaint
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner has formed his own volunteer-driven "shadow" COVID-19 response group aimed at bringing in private-sector expertise to augment the federal government's efforts to contain the disease.
However, a damning whistleblower complaint obtained by the Washington Post alleges that Kushner has loaded up his task force with inexperienced volunteers from consulting firms such as Boston Consulting Group, Insight, McKinsey who often have little knowledge in the areas where they are supposed to be helping.
"Americans are facing a crisis of tragic proportions and there is an urgent need for an effective, efficient and bold response," states the complaint, which was written by a former volunteer on Kushner's task force and was filed with the House Oversight Committee last month. "From my few weeks as a volunteer, I believe we are falling short. I am writing to alert my representatives of these challenges and to ask that they do everything possible to help front-line health-care workers and other Americans in need."
The complaint claims that task force members were told to prioritize requests from prominent Fox News hosts, including Brian Kilmeade and Jeanine Pirro, while also stating that volunteers repeatedly failed in their efforts to secure badly needed protective equipment.
Additionally, the Post reports that equipment was often diverted to Kushner's pet projects that failed to deliver the results that he promised.
"Even as the volunteer group struggled to procure protective equipment, about 30 percent of 'key supplies,' including masks, in the national stockpile of emergency medical equipment went toward standing up a separate Kushner-led effort to establish drive-through testing sites nationwide, according to a March internal planning document obtained by The Post and confirmed by one current and one former administration official," the paper writes. "Kushner had originally promised thousands of testing sites, but only 78 materialized; the stockpile was used to supply 44 of those over five to 10 days, the document said."