The New York Times - USA (2020-08-06)

THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-EDTHURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020 Y A23

OK, PEOPLE, I KNOWyou’re feeling a little
wan and helpless these days. Sure does
seem like a long time until November.
So let’s take an early vote and pick
Donald Trump’s Worst Cabinet Member.
The competition is intense this year.
Some days it feels as if everybody in the
administration is trying to grab the
grand prize. That they’re running
around with a list in their pocket titled
Things to Screw Up.
Vice President Mike Pence has been a
faithful hanger-on from Day 1. He’s now
doing double duty as Trump’s coro-
navirus czar. In which capacity he pre-
dicted on April 24 that the epidemic
would be “behind us” by Memorial Day
weekend.
Last season’s winner, Attorney Gen-
eral William Barr, certainly hasn’t been
resting on his laurels. At a recent House
Judiciary Committee hearing, he had to
be prodded twice before acknowledging
that presidential candidates aren’t sup-
posed to accept foreign assistance. When
asked if he agreed with Trump’s shock-
ing suggestion that a president could
move Election Day, Barr said, “I’ve
never looked into it.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came
in second-most-awful last time around.
Can he make the big leap? He got a boost
recently from my colleague Tom Fried-
man, who hinted at his opinion in a piece
called “Mike Pompeo Is the Worst Secre-
tary of State Ever.”
Nothing like the tried-and-true Trump
veterans when it comes to top-notch ter-
rible. But there’s new talent, too, thanks
to all the shuffling that keeps going on.
Chad Wolf, the acting head of homeland
security, is the fifth person to lead the de-
partment in the current administration.
If he can hang on until after the election,
he’ll have racked up more than a year on
the job — a Trump administration
achievement that is no doubt due to all
the prior experience Wolf had as a travel
industry lobbyist.
The postmaster generalis no longer
officially in the cabinet, for reasons way
too dense to explain. But we’re going to
leave Louis DeJoyin the mix because of
his vigorous efforts to wreck the postal
system — a goal that we’re sure has noth-
ing to do with the president’s hatred of
voting by mail. DeJoy’s top qualification
for the job appears to be more than $2
million in donations to Republican
causes during the Trump regime.
Did we mention his wife has been
nominated to be ambassador to Canada?
The Worst contenders keep on com-
ing: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
Jr., another previous winner, has been
relatively quiet recently. Literally, since
he reportedly keeps dozing off at meet-
ings. The man is 82 — what do you ex-
pect? But he’s still plugging away at the
administration’s priorities, like shutting
down the census count four weeks early.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is
a former lobbyist for the oil and gas in-
dustries, a résumé you will notice crops
up frequently. This has given him the in-

depth understanding that allowed him to
take a lead in the administration’s mas-
sive financial relief package for oil and
gas companies.
Bernhardt also seems to have been
one of the central administration players
in the drama of Lafayette Square, when
protesters were ejected by military po-
lice to make way for Trump and his Bible.
But he’s not volunteering any informa-
tion. “The Babe Ruth of stonewalling,”
said Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator
from Oregon who’s been following Bern-
hardt’s career for a long time. Bernhardt
traveled recently to Wyden’s home state
where he met with Native American
tribes — and refused, Wyden noted, to
wear a mask.
If you’re into the environment and
want another option, there’s E.P.A. head
Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for —
wait for it — energy companies. His lat-
est crusade is extending the life of gigan-
tic pits of coal sludge.
Or how about U.S. trade representa-
tive Robert Lighthizer? He’s not in the
news as much as some of the others, but
we’ll always remember his speech de-
fending Trump’s China wars, revealing,
“I don’t know what the end goal is.”
More! How about health and human
services head Alex Azar? He’s been on
the job a couple of years now, which by
Trump standards makes him a hardened
veteran. When he’s not busy failing to re-
spond to the pandemic, one of his other
missions is overseeing the administra-
tion’s attempts to gut the Affordable Care
Act and replace it with... some other
thing.
You don’t have to reward splashy bad
behavior if you prefer the more modest
figures who prefer to screw everything
up from behind the scenes. Like Educa-
tion Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose
standing in the Worst poll soared when
people realized they had a secretary of
education who didn’t like public schools.
Secretary of Transportation Elaine
Chao may not have done much for infra-
structure, but she sure is connected. Wife
of Mitch McConnell, Chao is also a mem-
ber of a wealthy and powerful family
that’s deeply into shipping contracts.
That got up to $1 million from our govern-
ment’s recession-fighting Paycheck Pro-
tection Program.
So — who’s your favorite? Send me a
Worst Cabinet Member pick in the com-
ments section of this column online. Vot-
ing’s open until midnight Eastern time
on Sunday, and we’ll announce the win-
ners next week. 0

GAIL COLLINS

Vote for

The Worst!

No, not Trump —

his cabineteers.

I

T STARTED with a text. Or perhaps

it was the phone call. Or perhaps it’s

more accurate to say it really started

the week before, when my husband

mentioned that his cousin S., who lives

far away, would be visiting the area and

wanted to come over for dinner in our

Hudson, N.Y., backyard, and I paused.

“Don’t forget, my parents come next

week,” I said.

But by the time the day came for S.’s

visit, the desire for normalcy had pushed

past thoughts of safety, and she arrived

wearing a mask. She spent the next cou-

ple of hours in our backyard eating take-

out Thai and talking without a mask.

Then she put it back on as she left.

That was on a Wednesday. My parents

pulled into town on the next Sunday. We

got the text on the following Tuesday that

S., who asked that only her first initial be

used, had tested positive for the coro-

navirus. Unknown to us, she had taken a

test two days before she ate in our back-

yard, and now, more than a week later,

the results had come back.

In that moment, all of the months of

pandemic headlines converged into a

single vanishing point. This was a mo-

ment that required strong, clear guid-

ance.

But the two pillars of the Covid-19 re-

sponse, testing and contact tracing, are a

well-documented mess in the United

States. It was left to us — the 17 people

whom S. had come into direct contact

with between the date of the test and the

result, and the many more who had come

in contact with us and then with others —

to do it ourselves. That came to almost 70

people.

It’s worth exploring our time as citizen

contact tracers to get a sense of what is

happening across the country, and what

will continue to happen, and why it is

likely to get worse, as schools and

churches and bars and restaurants snap

open and close while the virus continues

to fester. My own family is white and

privileged; we have access to doctors

and sick days and smartphones. I can’t

imagine how much worse our situation

would be without those things.

When I first heard the news about S.

testing positive on Tuesday afternoon,

my mind immediately spun. Could we

have transmitted the virus to others? Al-

though my husband and I and probably

our children had Covid-19 in the early

days of the pandemic and may have im-

munity, the science is far from settled

about how immunity works or if you can

be infectious. And we had seen plenty of

people since S.’s visit.

We have two babysitters, Alicia and

Tami, who come into our house at differ-

ent times during the day to watch our

young children, and they both live with

people who have compromised immune

systems. Not only that, on Thursday, the

day after we had seen S., a friend from

Brooklyn had come up for lunch in our

backyard. That evening, we had gone to

a drive-in movie with two other friends,

Antonia and Bradley. On Friday, the

same couple had Alicia babysit for their

2-year-old.

And then, of course, there were my

parents, both in their 70s. My father has

diabetes. They have been extremely

careful, and in my mistaken idea that

having dinner with my husband’s cousin

outside without masks was no big deal, I

had jeopardized their health.

But not just theirs. My babysitter Ali-

cia’s mother, who also has diabetes,

works as an assistant for a close friend of

ours in her 80s. That friend lives with a

partner who is in her 60s. They are all

now quarantining themselves, as are a

smattering of other people with whom

they have been in close contact. Alicia

and her mother immediately went to get

tested, as did Antonia’s family, but re-

sults wouldn’t come back for five to sev-

en days. But because symptoms typical-

ly appear within four to five days of expo-

sure, we opted not to get tested because

of the delays in getting results.

At the same time, my friend Antonia,

doing the right thing, told her son’s day

care about his potential exposure, and he

was promptly barred from returning to

day care for 14 days or until he got a neg-

ative test result. “I’m so sorry,” I texted

weakly, “2020 is the worst.”

The next day brought more confusion.

First, S. took a second test, this time one

that provides a rapid result, and it came

up negative. Perhaps optimistically, she

texted the group on Wednesday and said

that based on the negative tests of her

family and the opinion of her doctor, it

was very possible that the first test was a

false positive.

Then our 8-month-old daughter came

down with a fever and some diarrhea.

These are the symptoms of most child-

hood illnesses. They are also symptoms

of Covid-19. It seemed impossible to

imagine that she had the disease — she

had gotten sick with the rest of our family

in March — but we were not able to get

tested then, and she had not had an anti-

body test as my husband and I had later,

though we assumed she had it because

we did.

So again, we were back to circular con-

versations about potential odds of infec-

tion. My parents had been hugging and

kissing her for the past four days, as had

our babysitters and, by extension, every-

one they came in contact with. My volley

of text messages started again.

In the chaos of 2020 America, we are

left to seek out wisdom wherever we can.

And with conflicting messages — the

president saying one thing and most

public health experts saying something

quite different — we have been left to fol-

low our own internal compasses.

Alicia got tested and stayed home.

Tami, my other babysitter, didn’t feel the

need for a test; the risk of exposure

seemed small to her. My physician father

thought that if he had been exposed, well,

nothing could change that. Our pediat-

rician sighed empathically as I told the

rambling story and advised me to focus

on treating my daughter. Without fast,

accurate testing, she said, she was being

forced to give advice blindfolded, with

her hands tied behind her back.

Now it’s Thursday. More text mes-

sages, more questions. Should my par-

ents leave immediately or has the die

been cast? Both babysitters will be paid

for the rest of the week — but for how

long after that?

My mother, as I type this, is taking our

son on a walk down the block. She won’t

come in contact with anyone, but should

we be strictly quarantining now, no out-

side activities at all? What is paranoid

and what is reasonable behavior? I know

that by revealing what we did and didn’t

do, I am opening myself up to criticism

for not taking the safest route at all

times. And that criticism is probably jus-

tified. Certainly, much of it is currently

playing in a loop in my head.

At the same time, there is a vacuum

that should have been filled months ago.

We should have contact tracers, not just

my husband’s worried cousin and her

phone. We should have clear protocols.

We should have faster results from test-

ing. We should have... something.

We could live in President Trump’s

fantasy of out of sight, out of mind. If S.

had not gotten tested, no one would be

concerned. But because we have that one

fact — that her initial test came back pos-

itive — I am left to try to comprehend the

meaning behind another fact, that a

week after we saw S., my baby has a fe-

ver and stomach trouble.

The next few days will be filled with

uncertainty as we wait for the virus to

appear — or not — in the most vulnera-

ble of my family and friends. Until my

parents and the 70 or so other people

now joined by text stay healthy for 14

days, it won’t be clear whether this was a

false alarm or the beginning of another,

worse narrative.

As texts and phone calls with news of

other positive tests for the coronavirus

go out again and again across America,

others will be put in similar positions of

anger, pain and doubt, and some percent-

age of those people will end up in a hospi-

tal. This spring, as the curtain dropped

on New York City, we were alone and

frightened in the apartment we lived in

then. It’s hard to believe that five months

or so later, we are all in roughly the same

position. 0

A Dinner Guest, Then Viral Chaos

Reyhan Harmanci

REYHAN HARMANCIis the deputy head of

programming at Gimlet Media.

When our visitor tested

positive, the months of

bad news converged.

PAIGE VICKERS

W

EDNESDAY marked 90

days before the presiden-

tial election, a date in the

calendar that is supposed

to be of special note to the Justice De-

partment. That’s because of two depart-

ment guidelines, one a written policy

that no action be influenced in any way

by politics. Another, unwritten norm

urges officials to defer publicly charging

or taking any other overt investigative

steps or disclosures that could affect a

coming election.

Attorney General William P. Barr ap-

pears poised to trample on both. At least

two developing investigations could be

fodder for pre-election political machina-

tions. The first is an apparently sprawl-

ing investigation by John Durham, the

U.S. attorney in Connecticut, that began

as an examination of the origins of the

F.B.I. investigation into Russia’s interfer-

ence in the 2016 election. The other, led

by John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the

Western District of Texas, is about the

so-called unmasking of Trump associ-

ates by Obama administration officials.

Mr. Barr personally unleashed both in-

vestigations and handpicked the attor-

neys to run them.

But Justice Department employees, in

meeting their ethical and legal obliga-

tions, should be well advised not to par-

ticipate in any such effort.

The genesis of the department’s admi-

rable practice of creating a protective

shell surrounding an election recognizes

that unelected officials at the Justice De-

partment should not take action that

could distort an election and influence

the electorate. If someone is charged im-

mediately before an election, for in-

stance, that person has no time to offer a

defense to counter the charges. The

closer the election, the greater the risk

that the department is impermissibly

acting based on political considerations,

which is always prohibited.

It is not mere conjecture that Mr. Barr

could weaponize these investigations for

political purposes. In both cases, he has

already run roughshod over another re-

lated longstanding department practice.

It holds that department officials should

refrain from making public allegations of

wrongdoing before prosecutors decide to

bring charges, particularly since no

charges may emanate from the investi-

gation.

Mr. Barr and President Trump have

shown no compunction in publicly dis-

cussing these investigations, suggesting

wrongdoing by Democrats and deep

staters. Mr. Barr promised on Fox News

that “there will be public disclosure in

some form” in the Durham probe. It

should be no surprise that Mr. Barr has

followed the lead of his boss; after all, Mr.

Trump urged Ukraine to announce an in-

vestigation into Mr. Biden, an action that

was at the center of his impeachment.

Not so long ago, Mr. Barr and Mr.

Trump denounced Jim Comey’s negative

public commentary in the 2016 election

on Hillary Clinton. Indeed, the president

claimed that Mr. Comey’s violation of

these bedrock policies contributed to his

being fired. During his nomination hear-

ing, Mr. Barr told a Senate committee

that he would adhere to those policies.

“If you are not going to indict some-

one, then you do not stand up there and

unload negative information about the

person,” he testified. “That is not the way

the Department of Justice does busi-

ness.” He also “completely” agreed with

Rod Rosenstein when Mr. Rosenstein

wrote in a memo that Mr. Comey’s trans-

gressions during an election season

were “a textbook example of what fed-

eral prosecutors and agents are taught

not to do.”

Indeed, in his nomination testimony,

Mr. Barr captured the risk of an attorney

general acting for political purposes.

Members of the incumbent party, he

said, “have their hands on the levers of

the law enforcement apparatus of the

country, and you do not want it used

against the opposing political party.”

He was correct then and is wrong now.

Nevertheless, Mr. Barr may claim that

an extraordinary public justification ex-

ists for releasing a report, citing the

Mueller report as precedent. But there is

a very clear difference: The Mueller re-

port was not issued in the run-up to any

election.

Mr. Barr has another move to try to

justify his actions. He recently told a con-

servative radio host that the policy on in-

terference with an election applies only

to indictments of “candidates or perhaps

someone that’s sufficiently close to a

candidate, that it’s essentially the same.”

That’s an invention. The policy itself

refers to actions that give “an advantage

or disadvantage to any candidate or po-

litical party.”

Mr. Barr himself recognizes the politi-

cal effect of department actions beyond

those against a candidate. In February,

in response to the Justice Department in-

spector general’s recommendation for a

clear policy to open or take actions in sig-

nificant political investigations, Mr. Barr

issued a directive that centralized his

control over such investigations. The

new Barr requirements covered investi-

gations that “may have unintended ef-

fects on our elections” and notably in-

cluded candidates, senior campaign staff

members, advisers, members of official

campaign advisory committees or

groups, and foreign-national donors.

Take an example from the Mueller in-

vestigation. The special counsel’s office

knew it could not indict Russian military

intelligence officials for the 2016 hacking

operation in the run-up to the 2018

midterm elections. That’s right: The of-

fice could not indict the Russians — not

only political candidates or aides. Such

matters were so politically fraught that

such an action by the special counsel

might affect the election.

A key consideration should not be lost:

There’s no urgency for the department to

take any overt investigative steps or

make disclosures until after the election.

Even if there has been criminal wrongdo-

ing — which is by no means clear —

charges can still be brought in November

after the election.

What can be done if Mr. Barr seeks to

take actions in service of the president’s

political ambitions? There are a variety

of ways for Justice Department employ-

ees in the Trump era to deal with improp-

er requests. Employees who witness or

are asked to participate in such political

actions — who all swore an oath to the

Constitution and must obey department

policies — can refuse, report and, if nec-

essary, resign. Other models include

speaking with Congress under subpoena

or resigning and then communicating di-

rectly to the public. Reputable organiza-

tions are at the ready to advise whistle-

blowers about the risks and benefits of

pursuing these paths.

Above all, with the election around the

corner, it’s critical to ensure its integrity

and that the Justice Department steer

clear of political interference. 0

Will Barr Try to Help Trump Win the Election?

Ryan Goodman and Andrew

Weissmann

RYAN GOODMANis co-editor in chief of Just

Security. ANDREW WEISSMANNwas a

senior member of the Special Counsel’s

Office and is the author of the forthcom-

ing book “Where Law Ends: Inside the

Mueller Investigation.” They are profes-

sors at N.Y.U. School of Law.

Two inquiries could be

fodder for pre-election

political machinations.