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WASHINGTON, D.C. – During last night’s… interesting?… White House COVID-19 task force briefing, President Trump suggested that injecting one’s body with light might be a viable treatment for the coronavirus:

“Suppose that we hit the body with tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful — light. And then I said, supposedly you brought the light into the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way … Sounds interesting to me. The whole thing about the light…”

But as Trump touts light as a potential fix for COVID-19, he would do well to remember that his administration could use some sunlight as well: in recent weeks, Trump and his allies have taken great pains to obscure the administration’s failed actions in responding to the pandemic and to block efforts to hold him accountable.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant — perhaps Trump should try injecting some into his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US. “The President and his administration have mismanaged the COVID-19 crisis every step of the way, going to great lengths to hide its failures and block the public from knowing critical information. Trump should focus on making the government’s response more transparent and leave the medical theorizing to professionals who understand science.”

Trump has shown a pattern of skirting and blocking transparency measures during the crisis, including:

  • Moving to appoint a new inspector general to oversee the allocation of $2 trillion of CARES Act relief money after inexplicably ousting the official formerly in the role;
  • Quietly shuffling seven other inspector generals around the government without a reasonable explanation;
  • Potentially violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) with the creation of an advisory group of over 200 corporate CEO’s to advise him on economic policy;
  • Asserting that officials handling the administration’s coronavirus response would no longer testify before Congress, less than a week after Dr. Fauci publicly testified the country’s testing regimen is failing; and
  • Continuously blocking CDC officials from speaking publicly to reporters, and discontinuing the agency’s regular press briefing more than a month ago.

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