Why is a right-wing flack and Roger Stone ally in charge of Dr. Fauci's schedule?
Last week the Washington Post published a report titled "Fauci is sidelined by the White House as he steps up blunt talk on pandemic," which revealed that President Trump had not sought the counsel of the government's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in more than a month.
But as the Trump administration has strayed from the advice of many of its scientists and public health experts, the White House has moved to sideline Fauci, scuttled some of his planned TV appearances and largely kept him out of the Oval Office for more than a month even as coronavirus infections surge in large swaths of the country.
The 2,500-word report only briefly touches on the official who does that scuttling: a man named Michael Caputo, a 2016 Trump campaign aide who has been described as a conspiracy theorist with racist views and is closely allied with former Trump adviser Roger Stone.
It's not clear when Caputo took control of Fauci's media calendar. In a brief conversation with Salon, he replied, "Weeks ago." Asked if he could ballpark how many weeks that was, Caputo replied, "No."
The administration hired Caputo as deputy press secretary for Health and Human Services sometime in early to mid-April, the month the coronavirus was to "miraculously" disappear, according to the president.
https://www.salon.com/2020/07/21/why-is-a-right-wing-flack-and-roger-stone-ally-in-charge-of-dr-faucis-schedule/
