In an editorial, the New York Times says:

President Trump can’t handle the truth — at least, not when it makes his administration look bad. With his move Friday night to replace the top watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services, the latest in a series of direct attacks on statutory oversight of his administration, it’s clear that the president remains committed to withholding the truth from the American people as well.

Mr. Trump’s latest target, Christi Grimm, is the department’s principal deputy inspector general, whose office issued a report a month ago revealing the dire state of the nation’s pandemic response. After hundreds of hospital administrators across the United States were interviewed, the report detailed enduring equipment shortages and concerns about testing. “Further, hospitals reported that changing and sometimes inconsistent guidance from federal, state and local authorities posed challenges and confused hospitals and the public.”

Asked about the results of the report at his April 6 news briefing, Mr. Trump declared: “It’s just wrong. Did I hear the word ‘inspector general’? Really? It’s wrong. And they’ll talk to you about it. It’s wrong.”

The president then rushed to discredit Ms. Grimm. “Where did he come from, the inspector general? What’s his name? No, what’s his name? What’s his name?” When told of Ms. Grimm’s two-plus decades in government under Republican and Democratic administrations, Mr. Trump dismissed her as an Obama-era agent of the deep state, an attack he continued on Twitter the next day.

For Mr. Trump, there may be no greater betrayal than being the bearer of unflattering news about his administration. [Continue reading…]