As Corporate Media Goes Nuts Over Trump's "Mafia"-Like Classified Docs Coverup, Here's the Bigger DEADLY Coverup They Buried

MSNBC's Morning Joe crew reacted to "mind-boggling" Trump indictment. But what if I told you there was a much more sinister government crime—and cover-up—these same folks chose to ignore?

“Mind boggling”

“Extraordinary”

“Rivals anything Richard Nixon was accused of.”

“Reads like a mafia case.”

“It reads like something straight out of the Gambino crime family.”

“Guys meeting in the bushes at Mar-a-Lago discussing what to do.”

“So many parallels to a mafia investigation from those 60s and 70s.”

This was just some of the reaction from MSNBC’s Morning Joe Crew Friday morning in response to new criminal charges against former president Trump over his handling of classified documents.

Those new charges included allegations he conspired with underlings to destroy video surveillance at Mar-a-Lago—days after the Department of Justice subpoenaed him for them—and that he illegally disseminated a classified document on U.S. war plans against Iran to a group of authors at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey.

Trump should have his day in court, but to be clear, he’s guilty as sin and the evidence from the original classified documents indictment, and now the superseding indictment, is overwhelming. His crimes are serious and anyone else who carried them out without the title of former president would have been tossed in solitary long ago.

But it sure is interesting how buck wild corporate media journalists are going over these crimes, and this cover-up, compared to the government cover-up that, objectively, was far more sinister, far more widespread, and has killed an untold number of Americans.

You know…the government poisoning of an American city, the multi-layered governmental cover-up conducted while people slowly died, and then leaving the living victims to fend for themselves.

Yes, the Flint water cover-up is leaps and bounds worse—and “mafia" like—than Trump’s amateur hour clown show of hiding classified documents. Yet, the elitist public relations professionals masquerading as journalists at Morning Joe, MSNBC, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, Associated Post, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Flint Journal, and, pretty much the entire mainstream media ether, have ignored and/or buried it for years.

I guess a cover-up that kills and sickens a staggering number of poor folks, people of color, and children isn’t as sexy, or movie-ready, than the orange man.

For those new to my reporting on the Flint water crisis, and cover-up—broken over the years in collaboration with VICE News, The Intercept, The Guardian, and Detroit Metro Times—here’s just some layers of the Flint cover-up (and here is a tweet thread done on this earlier).

You tell me whether Trump’s criminal, yet clownish, handling of classified documents is on par with the biggest government cover-up of the 21st century.

March 2013: A decade ago, then-Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was briefed in person about warnings from his state environmental department advising that if Flint used the Flint River as a water source, it would pose “an increased microbial risk to public health" & increased risk of carcinogens in the water as a result of disinfection byproducts.

A year later, Snyder’s administration allowed Flint to switch to the Flint River.

March/April 2014: Right before the April 2014 Flint River switch, Snyder administration officials, Snyder-appointed Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, and local Flint/Genesee County officials, conspire to concoct a fake environmental emergency in order to allow Flint—broke and already at its legal borrowing limit—an exception to borrow $85 million dollars.

The fake environmental emergency they came up with…the inexpensive cleanup of a local lime sludge lagoon connected to Flint’s water plant. What the tens of millions of dollars Flint was able to secure through issuing bonds was really for…Flint financing its part of construction for a new privatized water pipeline being proposed that would allow Flint to discontinue its purchase of water from Detroit Water and Sewage.

**Several state and city officials are later criminally charged for financial fraud related to this scheme. But, due to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and her prosecutors’ incompetence, the state Supreme Court tosses out the charges after ruling Nessel’s office violated the state constitution in issuing Flint water indictments using a one-man grand jury (i.e. a Judge).

October 14th, 2014: Six months after water switch, Valerie Brader, Snyder's deputy legal counsel and environmental adviser, sent "urgent" email to Snyder’s chief of staff, communications director, chief legal counsel, and deputy chief of staff. In the email, which Brader called an “urgent matter to fix,” Brader pleaded for Flint to switch off of using the Flint River and back to purchasing water from the city of Detroit. She cited E.Coli, high TTHMS (carcinogenic chemicals resulting from disinfection byproducts), and other contaminants in Flint River water that Flint residents were receiving and drinking.

She mentioned that Flint residents were going to the media describing themselves as lab rats.

"Now we are getting comments about being lab rats in the media, which are going to be exacerbated when it comes out that after the boil water order, there were chemicals in the water that exceeded health-based water quality standards," she wrote.

After she sent the email, Brader was pulled aside by Richard Baird, the governor's top adviser—known as his “fixer”—to voice her concerns in a conference call with Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley. During, Brader’s plea for Flint to switch off of the Flint River was denied citing cost concerns.

Afterward, Baird threatened Brader.

From my investigative report in VICE News:

But, VICE learned, Baird was involved in the call. A source familiar with the criminal investigation revealed that beyond her public testimony, Brader was brought in for a confidential investigative subpoena interview with Flood. During it, she broke down in tears, revealing that Baird was not only involved in the call—he made demands. Afterward, Baird warned her to never again send an email like the water warning again, Brader testified. According to a source familiar with the criminal investigation, neither Baird, nor other top Snyder officials, followed up with Brader about her Flint water concerns.

Baird did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VICE on Brader’s claim and many other questions. Brader also declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal investigation. Darnell Earley didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

A source familiar with the Flint criminal investigation, who’s spoken with Brader, told VICE “she regrets not doing more. It haunts her at night, weighs on her conscience.”

October 16-17, 2014

After Snyder's "fixer" threatened Brader, Snyder, his chief of staff Dennis Muchmore, and director of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Nick Lyon, engage in a mad-dash of over 20 phone calls over two day.

The calls take place after Brader sends her “urgent” email pleading for Flint to switch off of the Flint River and at the same time officials in Snyder’s environmental and health department are trading worried emails and calls about an outbreak of the deadly waterborne Legionnaires Disease in Flint.

Flint water special prosecutor Todd Flood concluded Snyder and his top officials’ frenzied calls were an attempt to cover-up the Legionnaires outbreak weeks before his reelection.

From my investigative report in The Intercept:

Special prosecutor Flood subpoenaed MHA in late 2016 to produce relevant documents pertaining to its communications with the Snyder administration about Legionella. In his petition to subpoena MHA, which was obtained by The Intercept, Flood wrote that MHA joined Snyder and his top officials in keeping the information about the outbreak from the public.

“This evidence shows the Governor, his administration, Director Lyon, and the MHA knew about this outbreak of Legionnaires’ in October 2014, and were interested in keeping the information from going public,” Flood wrote in reference to the avalanche of calls.

October 2015

Days after Governor Snyder held a press conference admitting Flint's water was toxic and full of lead, phones belonging to officials' in his environmental department were "wiped clean"—with data & texts for the entire April 2014-October 2015 period Flint was on Flint River erased.

From my investigative report in The Intercept:

Soon after Snyder’s October 8, 2015, press conference announcing that Flint’s water was toxic, Krisztian was named the MDEQ’s Flint action plan coordinator. Weeks later, on October 19, 2015, MDEQ Director Dan Wyant admitted that the state environmental department had erred when it failed to treat Flint’s water with corrosion-control chemicals that prevent lead from leaching off old distribution pipes into the city’s water supply. One day after MDEQ’s public mea culpa, Krisztian sent an email to colleagues announcing that he had a new cellphone and number. 

Henry told prosecutors that Fick explained “it was odd to have [received] several working phones that were ‘wiped clean’ and no information could be retrieved. The timing of [this] was soon after the governor’s press conference on the 8th.” It was at that press conference that Snyder had first spoken publicly of the alarming lead levels. (The Intercept does not know which MDEQ officials, including Krisztian, allegedly used these phones or whether they are connected in any way with the senior MDHHS officials’ phones described by Flood as missing any data prior to October 2015.)

November 2015

Weeks later, the Governor's outgoing press secretary Sara Wurfel, against protocol, had her phone erased upon leaving the governor's administration. Wurfel’s phone being erased occurred shortly before the launch of the Flint water criminal investigation.

From my investigative report in The Intercept:

Investigators also discovered that phone data belonging to a key official close to Snyder was completely erased shortly before the Flint criminal investigation was launched.

Sara Wurfel, Snyder’s press secretary during the water crisis in 2014 through fall 2015, told Flood her phone was “wiped” when she left her job at the end of November 2015, after a civil suit was filed against the Snyder administration and a month before the launch of the Flint water criminal investigation. 

“Do you have text messages from 2015 currently [on your phone]?” Flood asked Wurfel in a confidential interview obtained by The Intercept. 

“No. So when I left the governor’s office, everything got wiped. I mean, when — I turned in my phone, it got wiped,” Wurfel told Flood. Wurfel, who kept her state cellphone number when she left her government job, said she didn’t recall if she had been asked to hand in her phone at any other time in 2015 prior to leaving her job in November. She also said she didn’t think that she had used iCloud to back up her phone data.

When asked for comment by The Intercept, Wurfel said, “Not sure what you’re referring to — please share if there’s a specific document, item, etc.” When provided with what she told the special prosecutor regarding her phone being wiped when she left her state role, she did not reply. 

October 2016

Richard Baird, Snyder’s top adviser and self-described “fixer,” is caught trying to interfere with witnesses ahead of their interviews with criminal prosecutors.

From my investigative report in The Intercept

Around the same time in October 2016, criminal prosecutors were tipped off that top officials in Snyder’s administration, including Baird, had approached other state officials before their interviews with criminal prosecutors, according to documents obtained by The Intercept and sources familiar with the matter.

“It’s come to my attention as recent as yesterday that some of the witnesses that we have been bringing in have been contacted by government or former government employees to talk about testimony that they may or may not give,” Flood told MDHHS official Jay Fiedler in a confidential interview in October 2016 obtained by The Intercept. (Fiedler responded that no one had approached him to influence his testimony.)

While interviewing Wurfel, Snyder’s press secretary, Flood also noted attempts by state officials to influence the testimony of other Snyder administration officials.

“There have been times where people have been contacted, after testimony that have sat in investigative subpoenas before, to talk about what they testified to,” Flood told Wurfel. “There have been — as disclosures have shown, people have been talked to in cases where witnesses have been talked to about what they should say in an investigative subpoena. … If someone were to do that, I would consider it tampering with evidence and an obstruction, and I would charge anybody that would do that to you.”

In the January 2021 indictment against Baird for perjury, extortion, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice, prosecutors referenced Baird’s attempt “to influence/interfere with ongoing legal proceedings arising from the Flint water crisis.”

February 2017

Weeks after Flint’s Adam Murphy drew media attention for screaming at state officials at a Flint water town hall, Richard Baird, the governor’s “fixer,” shows up in Adam and his then-wife’s living room. He has a state trooper and a former black ops commander draped around him.

During the meeting, Baird offered to Murphy a payoff disguised as a miraculous gesture: the state will pay for Adam’s expensive medical treatment in hopes of extracting lead out of his body. If it works, Baird says, he will offer it to Adam’s wife, children, and then the rest of Flint (unsurprisingly, that never happens). But there’s a catch: the Murphys can’t tell anyone who is paying for Adam’s treatment.

From my investigative report in VICE.

Christina told VICE that Baird said she’d receive the treatment when she stopped breastfeeding Declan, and told Adam he would be the state’s “pilot program”; if Adam’s chelation proved successful, Baird signaled, it would be made available to the rest of Flint. (Following Murphy’s chelation treatment, his blood-lead levels dropped dramatically; although he still has health problems, his seizures stopped and cognitive functioning improved, according to Christina, who is now his ex-wife).

“You’re going to be the face of Flint,” Baird said to Adam, according to Christina. The catch: The Murphys couldn’t talk to the media about it or tell anyone the state was paying for the treatment. (Baird, Hiipakka, and Thompson didn’t respond to VICE’s requests for comment.)

Adam Murphy didn’t agree to speak for this story, citing legal advice. In recent years, he’s openly talked about his chelation treatment.

The Murphys weren’t the only Flint family Baird allegedly tried to silence, according to sources familiar with the details of the criminal investigation.

Melissa Mays, another Flint resident, said she initially thought her hair loss and increasing fatigue was the result of working too hard. But after she and her sons faced rapidly declining health, she sprung into action.

From speaking up at Flint town halls to organizing protests and lobbying Congress, Mays became an outspoken thorn in the Snyder administration’s side. She was also one of several plaintiffs in a lawsuit that won $97 million from the state toward replacing Flint’s busted lead-service lines.

According to Mays, Baird approached her in May 2018, not-so-subtly trying to pay her off.

“Rick and I are out at the end of the year, so we have nothing to lose,” Mays recalled Baird saying. Baird allegedly said he was so tired of Flint residents’ complaining and lacking appreciation for all Snyder had done for them that he unilaterally, without the governor knowing, decided to end free water-bottle sites throughout Flint.

Think the governor’s right-hand man was just freelancing without the Governor’s knowledge? Think again.

Christina Sayyae, Adam’s then-wife, told me that before Baird left their home, he said he was going back to the office to tell the governor all about this.

Beyond the legal crimes perpetrated against the residents of Flint, the “journalists” that comprise major newspapers, cable news networks, and digital sites have aided the crimes of Snyder, Wall Street, and others by burying this widespread, multi-layered, deadly coverup.

What I call the crime the crimes bred from the hijacking of American journalism my multi-billion dollar corporate conglomerates. Despite the mainstream corporate media burying the worst government coverup of the 21st century, Status Coup and I will continue covering, and EXPOSING, the crimes of the Flint water cover-up as long as you help us keep the lights on.

Status Coup will continue investigating and uncovering what the national media COVERS UP. We would like to do MORE ON-THE-GROUND coverage in Flint. We don’t rely on corporate money or high-dollar ad placements, we rely on viewer support. You can gain access to exclusive content and help us fund this reporting today by BECOMING A MEMBER for as low as $5 a month.