A new report reveals that the Republican National Committee in June attempted to hide thousands of dollars in mask purchases by labeling the expense “building maintenance.”
According to Business Insider, “[W]hen the Republican National Committee in June spent more than $14,000 on ‘building maintenance,’ none of its facilities were getting a face-lift.”
“Instead, the RNC purchased face masks designed to limit the spread of COVID-19, according to Insider interviews and a review of federal campaign-finance disclosures released earlier this week,” the report continued.
Business Insider points out that the RNC mask purchase came at a time when Donald Trump was publicly refusing to wear a mask – months after the CDC started urging Americans to wear them.
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“The RNC ordered the masks at a time when President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans were refusing to cover their faces in public,” the report noted. “The purchases show Republican leaders were taking the coronavirus more seriously than they’d been publicly letting on.”
GOP officials were more concerned about pleasing Trump than saving lives
The notion that Republican Party officials would actively conceal the purchase of face coverings is proof that the GOP is more concerned about pleasing Donald Trump than they are about saving American lives.
For months, the president refused to lead on this issue, which turned mask-wearing into bitter, partisan debate. Republicans, too scared to break from their leader, followed suit by either refusing to mask up or downplaying the effectiveness of face coverings.
While Trump and his loyalists in Congress and Fox News are now urging folks to wear masks, the damage has already been done. More than four millions Americans have been infected by coronavirus and nearly 150,000 have died – far more than anywhere in the world.
The Republican National Committee may have tried to conceal their use of face masks, but what they can’t do is cover up just how catastrophic Donald Trump’s pandemic response has been.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
