Donald Trump at at Trump International in New Jersey (Shutterstock)
Leaked emails reveal that virologist Steven Hatfill, who was directly involved in the Trump White House's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, regularly complained that he was not able to focus on the stopping the virus because he was assigned to investigate purported "voter fraud" cases.
The emails, which were obtained by the Washington Post, show Hatfill complaining in October 2020 that his work on the virus was "taking a backseat to election stuff," and then in November 2020 writing that he had "shifted over to the election fraud investigation in November" instead of working on a plan to contain the virus.
At the time, COVID-19 was at the beginning of a long winter surge that would culminate in January where the United States was averaging more than 3,400 deaths from the virus every day.
By January, even with cases surging and hospitals getting overrun, Hatfill still wasn't focusing on the virus.
When a colleague of his asked him why they weren't doing more to get COVID-19 under control, he replied, ""Because the election thing got out of control. I go where my team goes," and then talked about his efforts to overturn the election results in Nevada.
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