Jared Kushner ordered for Biden to be excluded from Covid planning after election, Jan 6 witness claims

Assertion contained in interview transcript of former Trump official Alyssa Farah Griffin

Andrew Buncombe

Seattle

Thursday 29 December 2022 15:34 EST

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Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, personally ordered the Biden administration to be excluded from Covid-19 planning in the wake of the 2020 election, a Jan 6 committee witness has claimed.

In the days and weeks after Joe Biden defeated Mr Trump, he frequently castigated the Trump administration for failing to enter a formal transition process, in which new, incoming staff are brought up to speed by their outgoing counterparts.

With the nation gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, he was particularly angered that by slowing the transition process, Mr Trump’s actions could lead to more deaths.

Speaking in Delaware, two weeks after election day, Mr Biden said: “If we have to wait until Jan 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind. More people may die if we don’t coordinate.”

It has now been revealed that the decision to bar the Biden administration from planning came from Mr Kushner, according to new transcripts from the House select committee investigating January 6.

A former Trump administration official, Alyssa Farah Griffin, told the committee that Dr Deborah Birx, who headed the White House’s coronavirus task force under Mr Trump, had in the days after election day, asked if the Biden team should be looped in to plans to combat the pandemic.

“Absolutely not,” Ms Griffin said Mr Kushner had told the meeting.

Alyssa Farah Griffin in an appearance on ABC’s ‘The View’ on 17 March 2022 (ABC - The View)

She added: “And then we just moved on”.

The transcript of Ms Griffin’s interview with members of the Jan 6 committee is among hundreds of documents that have been released a week after the committee issued its final report and referred four criminal charges relating to Mr Trump to the Department of Justice.

A special prosecutor is already looking into various allegations against the former president.

Mr Biden came into office with an aim to deliver 100 million Covid vaccines in his first 100 days. Yet his team did not get information about the development of the vaccine stockpile until well into January 2021.

On the week of 14 January 2021, it finally gained access to Tiberius, the government’s tracking software created to keep tabs on vaccine distribution and administration.

By December 2022, at least 99 million people in the US had contracted Covid, and more than one million had died.

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