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Cuomo says he stands with Minneapolis protesters, links higher rates of coronavirus to racial inequality

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Saturday used social media and his daily coronavirus briefing to lash out against “injustice in the criminal justice system” and called for an end to the violent protests that have taken place in dozens of cities across the United States following the brutal death of George Floyd.

Initially, the Democratic governor seemed to link the coronavirus outbreak to inequality and Floyd.

“Why are black people dying from #COVID at higher rates than white people? Why are health outcomes worse in communities of color? Why did George Floyd die? Why does this happen again and again? It’s all related,” he waxed over Twitter.

About an hour later he tweeted a list of the names of 18 minorities affected by police brutality.

“Yes, the names change, but the color doesn’t,” Cuomo tweeted.

About 20 minutes later he tweeted again, “You are in denial if you think the death of George Floyd was an isolated incident.”

Floyd, 46, died Monday night in Minneapolis while he was in police custody. A cell phone video showed Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, had kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes as Floyd gasped for air and begged for his life.

Floyd’s death triggered peaceful protests in Minneapolis over police brutality and racial inequality on Tuesday. As the week went on, the demonstrations took an ominous turn and by Friday had turned deadly.

Similar protests have taken place in several U.S. cities including Brooklyn, N.Y.

At his Friday briefing, Cuomo said he stood with the Minneapolis protesters.

“Nobody is sanctioning the arson, and the thuggery and the burglaries, but the protesters and the anger and the fear and the frustration? Yes. Yes. And the demand is for justice,” he said.

That evening, New York police officers purportedly shoved protesters as unruly crowds gathered near the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn.

Two sisters from the Catskills who had been in the area were arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at an NYPD van Friday night.

In this photo provided by Khadijah, firefighters work to contain the flames from a New York City Police Department van ablaze, Friday, May 29, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, amid a protest of the death of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. (Khadijah via AP)

“It is by the grace of God … that we don’t have dead officers today,” New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news briefing.

At his coronavirus briefing on Saturday, Cuomo said New Yorkers had the right to demonstrate but warned they should wear masks while doing so.

“You have a right to demonstrate, you have a right to protest — God bless America,” he said. “You don’t have a right to infect other people. You don’t have a right to act in a way that’s going to jeopardize public health.”

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Cuomo also expressed confusion at why people disregard “the effectiveness of the mask.”

“Demonstrate with a mask on,” he said. “What’s the difference?”

George Floyd death: Minneapolis mayor calls for police officer to face charges

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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday demanded the arrest of the police officer seen on camera kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who claimed he couldn’t breathe and later died.

Frey called for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to “act on the evidence before him” and charge the “arresting officer” shown with his knee on Floyd.

“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey asked during a news conference. “If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now.”

MINNEAPOLIS GEORGE FLOYD VIDEO COMPARES TO KAEPERNICK TAKING A KNEE, ANOTHER ERIC GARNER ‘I CAN’T BREATHE’ CASE, ACTIVISTS SAY

Floyd was pronounced dead Monday night after he was taken into custody by police in Minneapolis.

A video of the incident spread quickly on social media, showing one of the police officers refusing to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck despite pleas from Floyd, as well as bystanders.

(Fox9)

In the video, Floyd can be heard yelling, “I cannot breathe! I cannot breathe!” as witnesses gathered. He said, “Don’t kill me!”

A short time later, the Minneapolis Police Department announced that Floyd, believed to be in his 40’s, died of a “medical incident.”

The Minneapolis Fire Department was also called to the scene. In its official report, the department said: “As [Engine] 17s attempted to locate the patient, the crew overheard and was told by several people that the police ‘had killed the man.'”

“We cannot turn a blind eye, it is on us as leaders to see this for what it is and call it what it is,” Frey said. “George Floyd deserves justice, his family deserves justice, the black community deserves justice and our city deserves justice.”

Frey declined to say what specific charges he thought should be brought against the officer.

4 MINNEAPOLIS OFFICERS FIRED IN DEATH OF BLACK MAN AFTER VIDEO SHOWS OFFICER PINNING KNEE AGAINST HIS NECK

The Minneapolis Police Department identified the officers involved in the incident as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng.

All four were fired Tuesday.

Chauvin has reportedly been identified as the officer who had his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“We are not talking about a split-second decision that was made incorrectly,” Frey said. “There’s somewhere around 300 seconds in those five minutes, every one of which the officer could have turned back and removed his knee from George Floyd’s neck.”

The FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced they would be investigating the incident.

PROTESTERS CLASH WITH MINNEAPOLIS POLICE AFTER GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said Tuesday that one of the core responsibilities of police officers is to protect “the sanctity of life.”

“We know there are inherent dangers in the profession of policing but the vast majority of the work we do never requires the use of force,” he said.

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On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters gathered at the intersection where the incident took place. Some later moved to one of the police precincts chanting, “No justice, no peace.”

People were seen throwing rocks at the building and at police cruisers, FOX9 reported. Tensions escalated and protestors were seen throwing water and milk bottles at the officers. Minneapolis police were seen firing tear gas and rubber bullets at people protesting.

Alleged Epstein madam Ghislaine Maxwell asks court for stay in civil case, argues it could implicate her

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Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madam of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has asked for a delay in a lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s victims because it would interfere with a criminal case against her.

Maxwell, a British socialite, has been accused of helping facilitate Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes.

Her lawyer, Laura Menninger, asked a federal judge to stay Maxwell’s deposition in a case filed by Annie Farmer.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN CASE: JUDGE WILL NOT GRANT PUBLIC ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS INVOLVING ALLEGED MADAM GHISLAINE MAXWELL

Menninger argued if Maxwell is put under oath and asked about Epstein, it could affect any potential criminal case against Maxwell.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York has publicly and repeatedly announced its ‘ongoing’ criminal investigation into alleged Epstein ‘co-conspirators’ on the same topic as (Farmer) alleges in this case,” Menninger wrote.

She added, “Denial of a stay, particularly a stay of Ms. Maxwell’s deposition, pending outcome of the criminal investigation could impair her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, extend criminal discovery…, expose the defense’s theory to the prosecution in advance of trial, or otherwise prejudice the criminal case.”

Farmer claims that both Epstein and Maxwell sexually abused her at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch and is seeking damages from Maxwell and Epstein’s $634 million estate.

PRINCE ANDREW ACCUSER VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE TO STAR IN NETFLIX DOC ABOUT JEFFREY EPSTEIN

Farmer’s lawyer David Boises argued the court should deny Maxwell’s request for a stay and claimed her reasons are “meritless and the motion is simply another attempt to unjustifiably delay this litigation.”

Maxwell, the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell, has been accused in court filings of facilitating a sex-trafficking operation that brought girls — some as young as 14 — to Epstein’s Manhattan home, though she has not been formally charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

Reuters reported several others who “facilitated” Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse are also being investigated, though the main focus is on Maxwell.

Maxwell, 58, dated Epstein more than a decade ago and became a member of his tight inner circle until his August 10 jail-cell suicide earlier this year. In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Epstein referred to Maxwell as his “best friend.”

Epstein, 66, faced sex-trafficking charges at the time of his death and was awaiting trial in a case that, if convicted, could have put him behind bars for several years.

“All day long, I saw Ghislaine going to get women. She went to places like Central Park. I was with her a couple of times in the car. …She would say, ‘Stop the car.’ And she would dash out and get a child,” Farmer said.

During an interview in August on “The Daily,” Farmer claimed Maxwell threatened her.

“She says, ‘You’re going out to jog on the West Side Highway every day and I know this. You need to be very careful because there’s so many ways to die there. So you have to be really careful. Look over your shoulder.'”

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Another alleged Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, accused Maxwell of recruiting her as a masseuse for Epstein when she was only 15.

Sarah Ransome, another alleged victim, told the BBC that Maxwell “controlled the girls.”

“She was like the madam,” Ransome said. “She was like the nuts and bolts of the sex trafficking operation.”

More than 100 million people in China face new lockdown as second wave of COVID-19 cases emerge

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Nearly 108 million people in China’s Jilin province could be forced back into lockdown after a growing group of new coronavirus infections triggered a backslide in the nation’s push to return to normal.

The abrupt reversal in China’s northeast region has once again cut off public transportation, closed schools and led to another round of quarantine.

Fan Pai, who works at a trading company in the nearby province of Liaoning, told Bloomberg News that people are starting to feel “more cautious” again.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY ON TRUMP’S THREAT TO FREEZE WHO FUNDS: THEY MUST PROVE THEY DON’T HAVE A ‘CHINA BIAS’

“Children playing outside are wearing masks again,” she said. “It’s frustrating because you don’t know when it will end.”

The new clusters of coronavirus cases have also ignited everyone’s worst fear that a second wave of the deadly disease could be on the horizon.

Wuhan, the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus was first reported in 2019, also saw new cases emerge last week, though neither the cases in Jilin or Wuhan have been as severe as the original outbreak.

CHINA UNDERREPORTED NUMBER OF CORONAVIRUS CASES, CHINESE MEDICAL ADVISER SAYS

Over the weekend, Jilin reported 120 new cases.

Chinese officials initially pinned the contagion’s re-entry on Russia, but admitted local transmission also occurred.

How China handles its second wave of coronavirus likely will serve as a template for other countries.

The problem, some say, is that China’s record of being less than truthful makes it almost impossible to believe its reported figures and response.

China has been at the center of controversy after being repeatedly accused of sitting on vital, lifesaving information about the severity of the coronavirus.

In recent weeks, the country hasn’t done much to improve its image, aggressively going after its own trading partners who have called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus. On Monday, Beijing imposed an 80.5 percent tariff on Australian beef barely a week after cutting off beef imports from the country after officials publicly backed a probe.

WHO’S EXCLUSION OF TAIWAN FROM CORONAVIRUS ASSEMBLY LEADS MORE NATONS TO SOUND THE ALARM

China also went after Taiwan, trying to silence its doctors and experts by locking them out of a seat at the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization’s annual summit.

Taiwan’s doctors were the first to warn the world about human-to-human transmission.

On Monday at the WHA, the European Union’s 27-member bloc called for the independent evaluation to “review experiences gained and lessons learned” but China shot down the request, arguing Beijing had provided all relevant data to the WHO and other countries “in a most timely fashion.”

“The work should be based on science and professionalism led by the WHO and conducted in an objective and impartial manner,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said. “We must strengthen global governance in public health.”

As of Tuesday, the killer contagion had infected more than 4.8 million people and claimed more than 319,000 lives worldwide.

China’s handling of the pandemic as well as its cozy relationship with the WHO have been criticized by President Trump as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several bipartisan lawmakers.

CHINESE STATE-RUN MEDIA TAKES AIM AT POMPEO, CALLING HIM AN ‘EVIL’ PERSON WHO ‘LIES,’ SPEAKS ‘NONSENSE’ AND SPITS POISON

Multiple intelligence reports also claimed China misled the world by purposely underreporting its numbers of patients and deaths. In a classified report sent to the White House more than a month ago, intelligence officials said China’s public record of COVID-19 infections was deliberately deceptive and incomplete.

In April, Trump suspended funding to the WHO and called the medical arm of the United Nations “China-centric.” He claimed it had put “political correctness over lifesaving measures.” However, the administration is on the brink of restoring some of the funding, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” recently reported.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar II said Monday that the U.S. “supports an independent review of every aspect of WHO’s response to the pandemic.”

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“We must be frank about one of the primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control: There was a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives,” he added.

And without naming names, he said, “In an apparent attempt to conceal this outbreak, at least one member state made a mockery of their transparency obligations, with tremendous costs for the entire world. We saw that WHO failed at its core mission of information sharing and transparency when member states do not act in good faith.”

Georgia police department at center of Arbery murder investigation has disturbing past filled with scandals, corruption

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The Georgia police department at the center of the Ahmaud Arbery murder investigation has been marred by scandals and claims of corruption for years, including allegations that detectives tampered with evidence, lied to prosecutors and retaliated against whistleblowers.

In fact, the charges against the Glynn County Police Department are so severe that the Georgia General Assembly is considering letting voters decide whether to disband the department altogether.

AHMAUD ARBERY’S MOTHER SAYS GEORGIA OFFICIALS WOULD HAVE ‘COVERED UP’ SON’S MURDER 

The PD’s sketchy track record has come under national scrutiny after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was asked to intervene in Arbery’s case more than 2 1/2 months after local authorities largely looked the other way. Within 48 hours of the GBI getting involved, law enforcement had arrested former police officer Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34. They were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

One area resident told Fox News the allegations against the police department are well known.

“They don’t have a great reputation and it’s just the good ol’ boys mentality,” she said. “They look out for themselves and everyone around here knows it.”

It’s a sentiment Page Pate, a criminal defense attorney in Glynn County, echoed.

“There is not just one prior case,” she told NPR. “There are many prior cases. And each one is a separate Netflix episode.”

Four days after Arbery’s shooting, Glynn County Police Chief John Powell was indicted for perjury and witness tampering and remains on administrative leave. Powell had been hired to clean up the department’s “culture of cronyism” but instead got caught up in a scandal where he was accused of covering up wrongdoing by the police department’s narcotics task force. Three other department officials were also arrested for their involvement.

Last year, the drug force was dismantled after a state-led investigation found extensive misconduct, including an incident where an officer had sex with a confidential informant.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

GEORGIA LAWYER SAYS HE LEAKED AHMAUD ARBERY SHOOTING VIDEO TO ‘STOP A RIOT’

In the past decade, the Glynn County Police Department has faced at least 17 lawsuits, including allegations of illegal search and seizure.

A Nov. 8, 2019 grand jury report concluded, among other things, that there was “an ongoing culture of cover-up, failure to supervise, abuse of power and lack of accountability within the administration of the Glynn County Police Department.”

A year before the report, Glynn County Police Lt. Robert Sasser killed his then-estranged wife Katie Kettles Sasser and her friend before turning the gun on himself.

Katie’s family is suing the police department because they claim authorities failed to step in before the murders and knew Sasser displayed “erratic, violent” behavior. The lawsuit states Robert Sasser started to track his wife’s movements after they separated by hacking her OnStar service in her car, peeped through her windows at night and used the police database to look up personal information on people she knew.

Despite complaints, the lawsuit claims he was never reprimanded.

On May 13, 2018, the cops were called to Katie Sasser’s house after Robert Sasser tried to break down her door and threatened to kill all of the people inside. When Katie Sasser was speaking to police officers on her front porch, Robert Sasser allegedly lunged at her and tried again to get into the house. When the police dragged him off the porch, he pointed his hand and his finger at her and claimed, “You know what is going to happen!”

After several other documented incidents, he killed Katie, her friend and himself.

“The public trust has been violated and respect for the county police has diminished with the slow creep of incremental and deliberate corruption,” the lawsuit claims. “The fact is that the Glynn County Police Department is in crisis, it has been for years and people are dying as a result.”

Robert Sasser’s violent streak first surfaced on June 18, 2010 when he and another officer were involved in the shooting of Caroline Small, a 35-year-old mother of two who had led them on a slow-speed police chase. The “chase” ended when her car, tires flattened to the rims, spun out on a suburban street.

One officer yelled, “If she moves the car, I’m going to shoot her.”

Dashcam video shows she pulled forward. Then it shows Sasser and his partner shoot Small eight times hitting her in the head and face.

After the killing, the two officers compared their marksmanship. One told a witness how he saw Small’s head explode.

Sasser avoided punishment and remained on the force.

That same year, the Glynn County Police Department lost its certification with the state because it failed to meet basic policing standards.

The PD has also been accused of not being representative of the population it protects. A report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police called out Glynn County for having only 12 percent of its force comprised of black officers even though black residents make up 26 percent of the county’s population.

The deep disconnect and cronyism are just two of the reasons lawyer Lee Merritt, who was hired by Arbery’s family, told Fox News that getting justice for Arbery would be an uphill climb.

“No family should wait 10 weeks for an arrest,” he said. “That was extremely exhausting for the family. They began to lose hope.”

Gregory McMichael, the former detective whose actions in Arbery’s shooting were defended as a citizen’s arrest, had been stripped of his law enforcement certification and power to arrest in February 2019, after he repeatedly failed to complete the required training.

AHMAUD ARBERY CASE: ADDITIONAL VIDEO BEING REVIEWED, AUTHORITIES SAY

According to documents from the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, McMichael had failed to finish mandatory firearms and use-of-force courses in 2014 as well.

None of it bodes well for the McMichaels but their lawyers argued this week the public was getting only half of the information.

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Jason Sheffield, Travis McMichael’s lawyer, vowed Thursday to find the “truth” and said the “facts” would eventually come out at trial.

“We know that there are strong opinions, we know there is anger, we know there is outrage, he said. “Right now we are starting at the end. We know the ending. What we don’t know is the beginning.”

Multiple calls to the Glynn County Police Department for comment were not returned.

WHO: 102 potential coronavirus vaccines in the works

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The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Thursday that there are 102 potential COVID-19 vaccines in development and that eight of the contenders have been approved for clinical trials.

On Monday, the global health arm of the United Nations reported seven possible vaccines had been given the green light for testing.

CRUZ BILL WOULD BAR US OFFICIALS FROM USING CHINESE-BACKED TECH, STOP TAXPAYER DOLLAS FOR RELATED UN CONTRACTS

One of the groups approved for clinical trials on humans is from the United States. Four are from China, one is from England and the last is made up of both Americans and Europeans.

The American National Institutes of Health (NIH) trial was the first to start testing on human subjects on March 16.

The NIH received $1.8 billion last week in the most recent stimulus package approved by Congress, bringing the agency’s funding to $3.6 billion to combat coronavirus.

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According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 3.2 million cases of coronavirus confirmed globally and more than 231,000 deaths. In the United States, there have been more than 1 million cases of coronavirus and more than 61,000 deaths.

COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, the capital city of central China’s Hubei province, in late 2019.

Coronavirus: China asks Switzerland to ramp up production of key component for ventilators

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China has asked Switzerland to ramp up its production of key components for ventilators after Beijing producers complained they were struggling to keep up with global demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Chinese producers said they have also run into red tape by the different quality standards in different countries, which has slowed down getting much-needed ventilators and other equipment into hospitals and health care centers combatting the novel coronavirus.

“Countries such as Switzerland are suppliers of important components for ventilators,” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “We hope Switzerland can increase their supply substantially to help enterprises increase production and alleviate the urgency of countries.”

BRITAIN JOINS GROWING CHORUS OF COUNTRIES FURIOUS WITH CHINA’S FAULTY CORONAVIRUS EQUIPMENT

The South China Morning Post reported Wang and his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis spoke on the phone and that Switzerland agreed to increase its production.

As estimate released Wednesday by EastMoney said the United States, Britain, France, and Italy will need 1 million ventilators to combat coronavirus. New York City is expected to need 30,000 by the end of April.

Huang Libin, director of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told the Hong Kong-based paper that parts shortages, foreign quality standards and tighter rules placed on China’s medical exports, are the top reasons China can’t expand production at a faster rate.

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Recently, China has been hammered by several countries for delivering substandard test kits and protective gear.

Earlier this week, Britain became the latest to cry foul about the quality of China’s coronavirus test kits and equipment after those the country purchased were deemed too unreliable.

China reports no new coronavirus deaths since outbreak began

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Mainland China on Tuesday reported no new coronavirus deaths for the first time since the global outbreak began.

The country also reported a drop in new cases of COVID-19 — one day before Wuhan, the city in central China where the pandemic began, lifts its lockdown.

China reported 32 new infections on Monday, down 7 from the day before, the National Health Commission said.

China, minus Wuhan, had reported no new deaths since March 31, but Tuesday is the first time there has been no new deaths reported for the whole country.

GRAHAM SAYS ‘THE WHOLE WORLD SHOULD SEND CHINA A BILL’ OVER BEIJING’S RESPONSE TO CORONAVIRUS

While the data looks promising, Asian countries are nonetheless bracing for a second wave of coronavirus cases.

The new numbers come as Beijing faces a credibility problem.

China has been under intense international scrutiny for underreporting its figures.

TAIWAN SHOWS UP CHINA, SENDING HARD-HIT COUNTRIES LIFESAVING CORONAVIRUS SUPPLIES

The country’s initial decision to downplay its coronavirus numbers as well as multiple shifts in its timeline has undercut much of the data out of China.

U.S. intelligence officials have accused China of misleading the world and purposely underreporting the numbers of patients and deaths related to COVID-19. A report sent to the White House purportedly claimed that China’s public record of coronavirus infections was deliberately deceptive and incomplete.

China has pushed back on those claims.

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As of Wednesday morning, there have been 1.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. Of those, 75,973 have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tally.

China pushes back on claims it lied about coronavirus numbers, US officials still skeptical

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China is pushing back on claims it purposely falsified the number of people infected with coronavirus and said of the 12,500 people who died during the country’s first mandatory lockdown, 10,000 did so of other causes.

“We didn’t conceal death figures, and the numbers are accurate,” Lu Shaye, Chinese ambassador to France, said Wednesday.

TRUMP SAYS HE CAN’T CONFIRM CHINA’S CORONAVIRUS CASE NUMBERS, WARNS OF ‘HORRIFIC’ DAYS TO COME

Asked to explain the massive uptick in funeral urns and long lines at funeral homes in Wuhan, the epicenter of the global pandemic, Lu blamed the backup on funeral homes closing during the lockdown.

“Funeral homes in Wuhan reopened on March 23,” Lu said on BFM TV. “You saw a lot of people waiting in line because over the two months of lockdown in Wuhan, apart from the coronavirus deaths, there have been about 10,000 people who died of other reasons.”

China has been widely criticized for how it’s reported its numbers and has been accused of suppressing life-saving data to show the world it had a handle on COVID-19.

CHINA LIED ABOUT CORONAVIRUS, PUTTING WORLD IN JEOPARDY, US INTELLIGENCE AGENTS SAY

On Thursday, China reported it had 1,863 coronavirus patients being treated for the disease despite declaring publicly it had cured the outbreak. It’s also the first time the number of current patients have dipped below 2,000, according to China’s state-run media. The announcement came following allegations Beijing was padding its numbers to show success in its treatments where there was none. The country reported it has 81,589 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 3,199 deaths.

On Wednesday, three U.S. intelligence officials accused China of underreporting the number of patients and deaths and said in a report sent to the White House that China’s public record of COVID-19 infections was deliberately deceptive and incomplete.

Hudson Institute senior fellow Dr. Michael Pillsbury told Fox News that China’s main objective is to spin data and silence critics who speak out on Beijing’s shortcomings.

“Whenever you become a China expert, the first thing you’re taught is about Chinese belief in the power of deception, that nobody ever tells the truth,” he said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.” “Everything is done for a principle, a larger goal.”

On Wednesday, President Trump said he could not confirm the veracity of the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths being reported by China. He added that the numbers from China “seem to be a little on the light side.”

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National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien put it a little more bluntly.

“We are not in the position to confirm any of the numbers coming from China,” he said. “We just have no way to confirm any of those numbers.”

Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report. 

China lied about coronavirus, putting world in jeopardy, US intelligence agents say

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As coronavirus cases have jumped in recent days, China misled the world by purposely underreporting its numbers of patients and deaths, three U.S. intelligence officials say.

In a classified report sent to the White House, the officials said that China’s public record of COVID-19 infections was deliberately deceptive and incomplete.

Bloomberg, which first reported the news, cited three U.S. intelligence officers who they said they alerted the White House last week to Beijing’s misleading numbers. Two of the three sources called the numbers flat-out fake.

NEW YORK SURPASSES CHINA’S OFFICIAL COUNT IN CORONAVIRUS CASES 

While there have been skeptics all along, China’s decision to downplay its numbers could have deadly consequence for the rest of the world.

Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising the White House on its response to COVID-19, said Tuesday that China’s numbers influenced assumptions in other countries about the nature of the contagion.

“The medical community made — interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain.”

CORONAVIRUS IS LATEST IN CHINA’S HISTORY OF TRYING TO COVER UP NEGATIVE INFO

Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has been accused of multiple coverups. It has shifted its timeline on what it knew and when it knew it and has gone after critics, doctors and whistleblowers trying to sound the alarm.

In recent weeks, China has launched a coordinated campaign to boost its global image. It has rebranded itself, tried to restart its economy and sold supplies to hard-hit countries struggling to contain the virus within their borders.

“The only thing better than playing themselves as a victim is showing that they can emerge as a resilient hero,” Greg Barbaccia, an expert in counterintelligence, insider threat and corporate espionage, told Fox News.

Barbaccia, who spent five years on active duty as an intelligence sergeant in the U.S. Army, said China is taking advantage of the current economic landscape and using it to their advantage as other countries like Italy and Iran struggle

Not only has China clogged up its own airwaves with propaganda touting the country’s success in taming COVID-19, it has also pledged millions of dollars to the World Health Organization and in return has received public accolades.

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A U.N. report released Wednesday praised China for sharing the genetic sequence of COVID-19. What it didn’t highlight was that Chinese officials didn’t report the first case of coronavirus until forced to and that documents later revealed that China knew about the dangers of the virus two months before reporting it. Had China been forthright, COVID-19 could have been contained.

On Wednesday, there were more than 847,081 confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world. The U.S. surpassed 200,000 cases Wednesday. Globally, the number of those infecting will likely hit the million mark by Friday. In the United States there have been 4,417 deaths. The body count globally stands at 45,497.