Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) BREAKING: Biden just implicitly made the most serious allegation ever made against an American politician: that Trump-China collusion caused tens of thousands of casualties. But he's right—as a book I wrote, PROOF OF CORRUPTION, confirms. Hope you'll read on and retweet.

1/ BIDEN: "For months, our country and the world have suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 117,000 Americans have lost their lives and tens of millions of workers are unemployed — and we’ve been hurt far worse because of Donald Trump's inability to lead... {cont.}

2/ BIDEN: "...and his failure to meet the crisis. Today we learned more about the depth and nature of that failure. Why didn’t he act when the warning signs were so clear? Why did he ignore his briefings from the intelligence community, the warnings from his own team... {cont.}

3/ BIDEN: "...and from me? Why did he repeatedly praise the Chinese government and President Xi as the coronavirus spread? Because he wanted to have a trade deal with China as a talking point for his re-election campaign." First, Biden is 100% correct. But we have to unpack this.

4/ In my book PROOF OF CORRUPTION, I lay out the most comprehensive timeline yet available on the spread of the novel coronavirus, using major-media reports and medical surveillance from the U.S., UK, France, China, and elsewhere. It tells a shocking tale. amazon.com/dp/1250272998?…

5/ You have to understand this timeline if you're going to understand that—yes—Joe Biden has just made the most shocking allegation ever made against a US presidential candidate, though he's waiting for researchers and analysts to underscore that point clearly to American voters.

6/ The novel coronavirus timeline first places the virus in China in late September or early October (ABC News), and in Europe likely in October or November (French medical data). But the question, Biden underscores, is *when did Trump first receive intelligence about the virus*?

7/ You'll notice that the White House—with an unexpected, and I'm sure well-intended, assist from the NEW YORK TIMES—has falsely tried to get Americans to believe that no one stateside knew of the virus until the worldwide WHO notice at the end of December. That is a lie. Period.

8/ One reason the White House wants the intelligence timeline pushed as far back as possible is the obvious: to pushback the timeline for Americans' reasonable expectations of Trump's actions. But there's a second reason that Biden—for the first time—underlines for all Americans.

9/ Donald Trump wrapped up his trade deal with China in December, and during the course of the negotiations China inserted a "force majeure" clause in the deal—a clause saying certain events could wipe out the whole deal—that normally you'd *never* find in a trade deal like this.

10/ Trump didn't object to the "force majeure" clause—though it was objectionable. Some will say, "That's because he wanted the trade deal." And it's certainly true: he *did* want the trade deal. He'd *also* gotten intelligence in November explaining why China wanted that clause.

11/ We *know* when the White House was first informed of the novel coronavirus—or we have, at least, from multiple sources, including Israel's equivalent of the NEW YORK TIMES, the range of dates: the three-week period from November 9 through November 30. That's the clear window.

12/ So the White House is briefed on a dangerous emerging virus in China—one capable of causing a pandemic—weeks before Trump wants to close a deal with China, and before he does close that deal despite a force majeure clause everyone knows shouldn't be in a trade deal like this.

13/ According to the TIMES OF ISRAEL, the White House "rejected" the intelligence that China had an emerging outbreak—and that Xi was hiding the outbreak from Trump—when it received it between November 9 and November 30. And right now you should be like, "Huh? 'Rejected it' why?"

14/ You're all smart enough to connect the dots—a *baby* could connect the dots—so that's exactly what Biden knows media will now do: report (and it should) that based on the major-media reporting we have, Trump ignored the coming pandemic in November 2019 to secure a trade deal.

15/ It's at this point that the major breaking news from the new Bolton book comes into play. Bolton reveals that Trump *explicitly* tied the trade deal to his re-election in negotiations with Xi, and "pleaded" with Xi to help him win re-election by signing a trade deal with him.

16/ In other words it's exactly as Biden alleges: Trump—who didn't enact travel restrictions on China until February 2 or social distancing restrictions at home until March 16—could have begun acting *in November 2016* had he "accepted" intelligence and "rejected" the trade deal.

17/ But it gets worse. It gets *much* worse. Because as I meticulously lay out in PROOF OF CORRUPTION using major-media reports and medical studies, we actually *know* how many American lives were lost because of Trump's inaction. And the data is harrowing—historically shocking.

18/ Simply the delay in action *from March 2 to March 16*—a delay caused by Trump, but for reasons so stupid I'll let you read them in the book—caused *84 percent* of US COVID-19 deaths.

I'd ask you to read that sentence several times.

And that's just a 14-day delay in *March*.

19/ So if 84% of COVID-19 deaths are attributable—per medical research—to a 14-day delay in March, what percent are attributable to *the delay from November to March* after Trump "rejected" the same US intelligence that (per THE TIMES OF ISRAEL) the IDF and NATO gladly accepted?

20/ There's too much at stake here, so we mustn't be coy: nearly *all* U.S. COVID-19 deaths—and at present, the official count is 120,000+, while the projected "actual" count is over 140,000—are attributable to the White House's *refusal* to accept intel about China in November.

21/ So Biden's accusation is that Trump's violation of his oath *directly caused 100,000+ Americans to die*.

And he's right. All the evidence, all the reporting, all the medical data, all the intelligence, and every component of the timeline establish that that's what happened.

22/ But it gets *worse*. *Much* worse. And at this point in the thread you might be saying, "No, Seth. It doesn't get worse. Because it *couldn't* get worse. What Biden has accused Trump of is a betrayal of America greater than any previously recorded."

But it *does* get worse.

23/ As established in PROOF OF CORRUPTION—a book where every fact is fully sourced, and 5,000 major-media citations accompany the book in a publicly available digital archive—it *wasn't* just that Trump thought a trade deal would aid his reelection. He was *colluding* with China.

24/ In June 2019, Trump communicated to China that he *explicitly* wanted and needed their illegal election assistance to win, thereafter *explicitly* laying out trade terms so favorable to them—terms that shocked his own team—that the presence of a quid pro quo was unambiguous.

25/ In October 2019, when Trump publicly asked China to give him dirt on Biden, he was doing what he had done with Russia: "laundering" his private crimes by airing them in public, something the new breed of criminal does to make it seem impossible they've done anything untoward.

26/ In fact, when Trump made his public "ask" of China he already knew a) he'd *privately* established a quid pro quo with China that involved him offering beneficial trade terms for unspecified Chinese aid down the line, b) he had sent a trade rep to Beijing to collect that aid.

27/ That's right: per THE FINANCIAL TIMES and THE DAILY BEAST, Trump's most-trusted man in China—per Trump—Michael Pillsbury, was collecting dirt on Biden from Beijing the *very week* Trump publicly asked for that dirt. The public ask masked the very serious private machinations.

28/ Remember—this was in October. This was before the intelligence arrived in November. So at the time the intelligence arrived, the quid pro quo *had already happened*—Trump was getting Biden dirt and the ability to announce a trade deal, China was getting *amazing* trade terms.

29/ *Now* move forward, again, to November 2019.

U.S. intelligence arrives indicating that China has a major outbreak and is hiding it. The White House *can't* accept that intelligence—as it would scuttle the very quid pro quo that by then had essentially already been perfected.

30/ *Now* move forward, again, to December 2019.

China puts a "force majeure" clause in a trade deal where it *doesn't belong*. The White House *can't* object to it, as it's already rejected the intelligence that explains why the clause is there—and why Trump shouldn't allow it.

31/ Mind you, these are just the broad strokes of a story told in full in PROOF OF CORRUPTION. Because of course there's much more to the story—all fully sourced. For instance, the White House also had to ignore early virus warnings from U.S. WHO advisers in Geneva...in December.

32/ I can't underscore this enough: Trump cut a deal with China in June, it was completed in October, with the result being that when COVID-19 intelligence arrived in November and a bogus trade deal arrived in December the White House was *paralyzed* by Trump's secret collusion.

33/ And lest you say, "But wait, surely everyone knew about this?" the answer is no—they didn't. The reason they didn't is because of men like Michael Ellis, the very NSC official who's now trying to block Bolton's book containing some of these historically harrowing revelations.

34/ Trump first broached Biden with Xi during a phone call with Xi in mid-June; the next step in the collusion occurred at a private negotiation in late June. So what happened to that phone call from June 2019? If you've been playing along at home, you can guess.

It was hidden.

35/ Don't have my word for it: Google it. One of the few Trump calls with a foreign leader illegally put into the NSC NICE archive—an archive for classified materials—was Trump's June 2019 call with Xi. It was put there because Trump committed an impeachable offense on the call.

36/ That's right: the *same people* at the NSC and in the White House Counsel's office who tried—unsuccessfully—to cover up Trump's impeachable quid pro with Ukraine in July 2019 knew just what to do...

...because they'd done the same thing a month earlier with respect to China.

37/ I've no idea why Dems didn't investigate this. If @RepAdamSchiff can enlighten us, I'd certainly love to hear it. *Especially* as with China—unlike Ukraine—Trump was *receiving personal benefits* (in the form of valuable trademarks for the Trump Org) throughout his collusion.

38/ I've been saying this for months, ever since I finished my research for PROOF OF CORRUPTION: the Trump-China collusion scandal is *orders of magnitude* worse than the Russia scandal *or* the Ukraine scandal because *it cost tens of thousands of U.S. lives*.

It cost *lives*.

39/ I'd be remiss if I didn't note that we received our first sign that Trump's complicity with the Chinese government would be far worse than his collusion with Russia or anyone else from an intel source the GOP has worked hard to discredit for four years now—Christopher Steele.

40/ In *2016*, Steele said, correctly—along with so much else his sources reported that was correct—that Trump's ties to China far exceeded his ties to Russia. And they do. (And yes, I spend a lot of time on this in PROOF OF CORRUPTION.)

Now the chickens have come home to roost.

41/ If we'd heeded Steele's warning—that Trump's ties to China would undermine American democracy more than any other ties he has—perhaps we would've been more on guard. Instead, we fell for Trump's *BS* line that he wanted to be tough on China. But that was never the intention.

42/ I know many of you are debating whether to buy John Bolton's book. I am in the camp that says Bolton is a liar, a coward, and a traitor who shouldn't earn a *dime* off waiting to warn America about impeachable conduct he knew about as far back as 2018. But there's a problem.

43/ The problem is that this is an election year, and Americans must be informed when they go to the polls. We *do* need to be exposed to works that lay out the full range of Trump's collusion with foreign nations. I haven't read Bolton's book, so I don't know how in-depth it is.

44/ If Bolton's book isn't just an apologia for Bolton, as it sounds like it is; if it doesn't stop short of supporting Trump's impeachment, as it sounds like it does; if it doesn't pull punches on politically sensitive topics that could hurt Bolton's future in the GOP... {cont.}

45/ ...as it sounds like it does, sure, buy it for the sake of being informed and helping others be informed—and if the cost is one traitor getting rich, it might be a cost that America has to pay right now. Alternatively, if other books come out that do the same work, buy those.

46/ I don't know all the books coming out this fall about Trump's crimes. It sounds like there may be a few—though it also seems many of them will be *narrow*, focusing on one element of a larger story every American voter needs to know. And the larger story *is* what's critical.

47/ Obviously, I can only speak to my own book, which establishes—as Bolton confirms—that what Trump did in Russia, he did in Ukraine; what he did in Ukraine, he did in China; and what he did in Russia, Ukraine, and China, he also did in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and the UAE.

48/ One thing we *can't* do is let radicals on the right pretend these are individual, far-flung, tiny fires warranting no attention. *No*—individually they would already be historic, but *together* they constitute by far the largest bribery scandal in the history of our country.

49/ Everywhere Trump has solicited or offered bribes, the same pattern appears. But the *consequences* are getting *far* worse: in Iraq, it was 200 U.S. casualties resulting from Trump-Israel/Trump-UAE collusion; in Syria, Trump-Turkey collusion resulted in the genocide of Kurds.

50/ And now America itself is suffering for having not removed this criminal from the White House. Now *we* have lost over 100,000 people—over 100,000!—because of Trump-China collusion. Thank God Biden is pointing it out, because frankly we should all be *shouting* about it. /end