The coronavirus pandemic panic — called by Michael Knowles the “Dem panic” for the Democrats’ opportunistic obsession on the subject, using it to unseat Trump from power in 2020 — has been covered extensively by Paul Jacob on this site. But it’s not Paul’s main focus, so most stories just have to be left unnoticed.
But every now and then it’s good to check in on the developing story. Here is an interesting update: Ryan King, at the New York Post, offered us “CDC doctor monitoring bad COVID vaccine reactions may have deleted files, alleges Sen. Ron Johnson,” yesterday.
“Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) struggled to find records belonging to Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, the director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office,” writes Mr. King, “while trying to comply with a subpoena from Sen. Ron Johnson (R‑Wis.) for vaccine safety data.
In January, after becoming chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Johnson blasted out a subpoena for records on internal COVID-19 vaccine safety communications, which led to HHS discovering the potential discrepancies with Shimabukuro’s emails.
“Any attempt to obstruct or interfere with my investigatory efforts would be grounds for contempt of Congress,” Johnson wrote Wednesday.
Contempt of Congress is punishable by up to a six-figure fine and 12 months in prison.
The deleting of files is a common accusation, as has crossed the mind of anyone contemplating the JFK assassination or the weird world of UFOs. As the pandemic panic moves from news to history, we can expect many such accusations.