The "scandal" here is Congress' inaction and political warfare

Pelosi’s bosom buddy, CT’s own Rosa DeLauro is now your new Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Feel better?

STAT is reporting that Trump took money from hospital relief funds to pay for Operation Warp Speed. Because Congress refused to fund it!

“Hospitals in need of the funding would be outraged to know that some of the money was siphoned off, even for important uses, because Congress was clear that this money was for providers and clinicians,” said Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals.

Former White House budget office director Russ Vought, one of the key officials involved in the deliberations, defended the decision. He told STAT the expenditure was necessary to support the successful development and purchase of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics.

“We had to draw from the Provider Relief Fund and had the authority to do so. It was the right thing to do in order to move as quickly as possible because lives were on the line. Thankfully we did. We would do it again,” Vought said in an email.

The Operation Warp Speed program was created by the Trump administration, not Congress, so officials pulled funding from existing pools of money. But by late summer last year, the Warp Speed accounts were running dry, a former senior HHS official said.

Officials didn’t want to slow down support of vaccines and therapeutics, so they scrambled to find more funds. The $175 billion fund lawmakers created to help health care providers recover from the pandemic proved a tempting target.

Politics played a role as well — the money was running out in the contentious run-up to the presidential election. Lawmakers were widely expected to pass an additional Covid-19 relief bill in July last year, but negotiations ultimately dragged out until December.

Congress gave HHS permission to move money between accounts to respond to the pandemic, but the authority came with a catch — the agency had to notify Congress, and specifically, its appropriations committees, at least 10 days in advance of a transfer. Evan Hollander, a spokesperson for House Appropriations Committee Democrats, said the Trump administration did not notify the committee of any such transfer, and did not request additional funding for Operation Warp Speed.

“It is unfortunate the Trump administration preferred to divert billions of dollars from the Provider Relief Fund instead of submitting a request to Congress for the necessary funds,” House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a written statement.

Criminals — De Lauro among them