Matt Pottinger: The Intelligence Agent Who Shut Down America and hired Deborah Birx
The Manchurian candidate?
Appointing Deborah Birx as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator
Beginning in January 2020, Pottinger began petitioning for Deborah Birx to be appointed as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. Birx then embarked on a months-long scorched earth campaign for lockdowns that were as long and strict as possible across the United States.On January 28, 2020, Pottinger began to reach out to Deborah Birx to have her come to the White House to lead the response to the Coronavirus. As Birx recalls in her book:
I received a text from Yen Pottinger (subordinates a bright virologist named Yen Duong who’d developed a widely-used HIV test at the CDC). She is the wife of my friend Matt Pottinger, the deputy national security advisor, he wanted to meet with me face to face. Yen arranged for me to him in the West WingMatt got to the point quickly. He offered me the position of White House spokesperson on the virus.
Birx’s relationship with Pottinger. Pottinger was married to one of Birx’s. Duong would eventually marry a Wall Street Journal reporter turned marine named Matt Pottinger, a connection that would eventually bring Birx into Trump’s orbit. According to Pottinger and Birx, he pleaded with her over several weeks to head the Coronavirus Task Force, and she reluctantly agreed. The hero we didn’t need. As Birx recalls in her book: It is March 2, 2020 After weeks of urging from Matthew Pottinger— President Trump’s deputy national security advisor, a task force member himself—I finally gave in to Matt’s request that I come on board to help with the response to the coronavirus outbreak…
As documented in her bizarre tell-all book, which received uniquely excellent reviews from Chinese state media,Birx then embarked on a months-long, largely clandestine, scorched-earth crusade to orchestrate lockdowns that were as long and strict as possible across the United States. These lockdowns ultimately killed tens of thousands of young Americans while failing to meaningfully slow the spread of the coronavirus everywhere they were tried. By her own admission, she lied, hid data, and manipulated the president’s administration to drive consent for lockdowns that were stricter than the administration realized. No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it.
https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/matt-pottinger-the-intelligence-agent
Matt Pottinger, was in the Trump White House. A former journalist turned highly-decorated U.S. Marine who served as an intelligence officer for part of his time, Matt had deep experience in China (including during the 2002–2003 SARS outbreak there) and was fluent in Mandarin. Matt took a position in the National Security Council in the earliest stage of the Trump administration, while still serving in the Marine Reserves.
There’s little information about Pottinger’s role in Covid online.
Yet Pottinger is portrayed as a leading protagonist in three different pro-lockdown bookson America’s response to Covid-19: The Plague Year, Nightmare Scenario, Chaos Under Heaven. Pottinger’s singularly outsized role in pushing for alarm, shutdowns, mandates, and science from China in the early months of Covid is extremely well-documented. Pottinger’s enormous influence during Covid is especially surprising not only because of his absence from online discussion about these events, but because of who he is.
Pottinger "has never been a Trump-style #MAGA conservative" and who donated to both Democrats and Republicans. In 2017, he was hired as a member of the U.S. National Security Council of the administration of Donald Trump. Michael Flynn, whom Pottinger had worked for in the military,made him the NSC's Asia director, and he remained in his position under H. R. McMaster and John Bolton. Pottinger submitted his resignation on January 6, 2021, following the U.S. Capitol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Pottinger