Shanel Robinson, a Somerset County, NJ official, reported federal officials commandeered 35,000 masks, explaining:
"Part of the thing is, I know the government is monitoring large orders of equipment, but they had no idea where that was going. They're on a watch for anybody ordering en masse. It's not like we put in orders every week. We've been waiting on that order for two-and-a-half, three weeks."
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told CNN his state bought 500 ventilators before they were "swept up," adding:
"Either be in or out. [Either let] us know what we're going to get and when we're going to get them or stay out and let us buy them."
Miami-Dade, Florida's Director of Emergency Management, Frank Rollason, described the shipment of one million N95 masks "taken," "hijacked" by the federal government.
To WLRN, he said:
"We were going to meet the plane and actually take them. That's like gold, you know. But we got the word from the company that they had been taken from the federal government I say it was hijacked, because that's what happened."
In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, chief physician executive at Baystate Health in Massachusetts, Dr. Andrew Artenstein, records how the FBI questioned him after his hospital staff worked "around the clock" to secure a PPE shipment.
In that letter, he details:
"Deals, some bizarre and convoluted, and many involving large sums of money, have dissolved at the last minute when we were outbid or outmuscled, sometimes by the federal government. Then we got lucky, but getting the supplies wasn't easy. Two semi-trailer trucks, cleverly marked as food-service vehicles, met us at the warehouse. When fully loaded, the trucks would take two distinct routes back to Massachusetts to minimize the chances that their contents would be detained or redirected. Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system's urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure."
American states are not the only victims of this government-sanctioned piracy.
FEMA has also commandeered PPE from France and Germany.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), along with a group of other House Democrats, called on FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor to provide any documents pertaining to the seizures, stating:
"Officials and health care providers in California, Florida, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, Alaska and Texas have described similar experiences. FEMA must explain their actions."
FEMA, of course, denies any shenanigans,.
A spokesperson explained the agency "has developed a system for identifying needed supplies from vendors and distributing them equitably."
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