President Trump said Thursday that he had seen evidence to prove that the coronavirus pandemic had spread from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but he declined to detail what that evidence was.
“I’m not allowed to tell you that,” he said . . . .*
Let’s consider this for a bit. Trump says he’s “not allowed to tell” us. Well, why is he not allowed to tell? Who is stopping him? Way back early in his administration he declassified secret information; as president, he had the right to do so. Just a year ago last May, for example, he gave the Attorney General broad power to declassify documents.** He had no one above him to say no, to disallow the release of such information.
Trump’s refusal to divulge his (apparent) evidence immediately reminded me of this scene in the W. C. Fields/Mae West film “My Little Chickadee.”
Clearly, Trump (no gentleman) was pulling a fake “Gentleman’s Game” ploy before our eyes. To quote Gertrude Stein, as far as Trump’s privileged information went, there was “no there there.”
Trump has been pulling the fake card trick for years now. His most used fakery phrase is “many people.” A recent variant was "very good experts”—who supposedly predicted that the coronavirus outbreak "would never affect the United States.”***
When next he tries to pull that stunt, I am waiting for someone to pop up and demand: “Name one!”
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*** https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-very-good-experts-said-coronavirus-would-never-affect-us-2020-4
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