The Week's Saturday Wrap
The DOJ’s selective justice, PEPFAR’s uncertain future, and bird flu’s health threat  

 
controversy of the week

Justice Department:  Condoning corruption under Trump?

The rule of law has long been the cornerstone of American freedom, said Carol C. Lam in The New York Times. But “as the song says, ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’” The Justice Department last week ordered Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to dismiss the corruption case against New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams. Instead, Sassoon—a rising conservative legal star who clerked for late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia—handed in her resignation. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, she explained that acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove had made clear to her and Adams’ attorneys that the bribery charges were being dropped not because the case was flawed, but so the mayor could aid President Trump’s immigration crackdown. This “amounted to a quid pro quo,” Sassoon wrote, and she could not in good conscience participate. Bove blasted Sassoon for “insubordination,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. But by that point, six other prosecutors in Sassoon’s office had also resigned rather than participate in Bove’s “drug deal,” as did several lawyers in the Justice Department’s public integrity section and four of Adams’ deputy mayors. They all “deserve immense moral credit” for their principled resignations, though it will do little to impede “Trump’s effort to turn American law into a patronage system.” 

What Justice did here was more “ham-handed” than despotic, said Jason Willick in The Washington Post. The “Department’s independence from politics has always been a matter of rituals and appearances more than reality.” If Bove had simply argued that the case against Adams just wasn’t strong enough—and the allegations that he accepted illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from Turkish government–linked sources are “underwhelming”— the Trump-appointed Sassoon would not have resigned. Adams’ fate is now unclear, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The judge overseeing his case is examining the dismissal request, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul may remove him as mayor. But nothing will undo what Bove’s “awful political judgment” has done to the reputation of this Justice Department. 

This was no accident, said Joe Nocera in The Free Press. As with his pardon of Jan. 6 rioters, Trump’s leniency toward Adams—who had been slathering Trump with public praise—broadcasts the message that “it pays to be a friend of Donald Trump.” But Trump’s friendship is conditional, said The New York Times in an editorial. Bove wants the case dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning charges can later be refiled, giving Trump “control” over Adams in perpetuity. The extent of that control became clear last week when Adams appeared on Fox News with Trump border czar Tom Homan and “collegially discussed” letting ICE agents into a city jail, potentially violating city law. “If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” 

Trump may eventually regret this ugly deal, said Noah Feldman in Bloomberg. Not because of “Democratic opprobrium or even the damage to Justice Department morale.” Rather, it’s the message sent by the resignation of Sassoon and other prosecutors, who are among the most “intelligent, qualified conservatives in the U.S. government.” They could become “role models” for principled conservative lawyers and judges throughout our legal system, from the bottom to, perhaps, the top. When historians seek to understand how Trump “lost a Supreme Court to which he appointed three members,” the resignations may be seen as “a crucial turning point.”

 
 
VIEWPOINT

The end of human expression

“AI offers us no individuality, no creativity, no genius, it merely scrapes all that has ever been published and gives us the most probable output. In doing so, it pillages all human culture and flattens it into sickly imitation. We use this tool to make decisions, we use it to prepare for dates, we use it to compose letters to lovers and to grieve family members. Instead of expressing, imperfectly, with difficulty, what is in our heart, we let the machine spin out the same stale words. In vacating our own creativity, we become molded into the likeness of the algorithm, and all human expression threatens to become recursive, meaningless repetition.”

Nathan Beacom in The Dispatch

 
 
briefing

PEPFAR’s uncertain future

The U.S.-funded effort against AIDS has saved millions of lives. Why is it now in jeopardy?

What is PEPFAR? 
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is a U.S. aid program that combats HIV/AIDS worldwide. Launched in 2003 by President George W. Bush, it has blunted the global HIV pandemic by testing hundreds of millions of people and giving those who are infected lifesaving antiretroviral drugs—medications that prevent the human immunodeficiency virus from developing into AIDS. PEPFAR has also distributed billions of condoms and prevented transmission from mothers to babies by giving women and girls reproductive education and health screenings. In just over two decades, these efforts have saved more than 26 million lives across 55 countries, reduced child mortality by 35 percent, and increased global GDP per capita by more than 2 percent.

Why did Bush set it up?
HIV/AIDS was rampant in Africa when Bush took office, infecting more than one-third of adults in some countries. While there were new drugs available, fewer than 1 percent of the 30 mil- lion HIV-positive people on the continent were getting them, and AIDS was killing 2 million Africans a year. President Bill Clinton had already declared AIDS a national security threat, fearing the 14 million kids left orphaned by those deaths would be ripe for recruitment by militias and terrorist groups. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack, Bush proposed an ambitious, U.S.-funded scheme to stop the pandemic’s spread, and Rep. Henry Hyde, a fiscally conservative Republican, took the lead in Congress to pass legislation establishing the program. “I’m not naïve enough to think PEPFAR was purely altruistic,” said Ugandan journalist Daniel Kalinaki. “It was a defensive mechanism that turned into something good—arguably America’s biggest foreign policy win.” Since its passage, PEPFAR has enjoyed bipartisan support, with Congress continuously reauthorizing the program at some $25 billion every five years. But now its funding may be cut off.

Why is the program at risk?
PEPFAR was one of the initiatives halted in the blanket freeze on foreign aid President Trump declared last month. Its 270,000 doctors, nurses, and pharmacists were told not to report to work and to turn away patients who came for their antiretroviral drugs. “I was warned by my doctor not to miss a single dose because that could lead to resistance,” said Milicent Muyoma, a Kenyan woman with HIV. “I don’t know what will happen if I don’t secure my medicines soon.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio eventually issued a humanitarian waiver for PEPFAR so it could resume HIV testing and drug distribution, but the program is now in chaos. Hundreds of organizations in Africa said their access to PEPFAR-funded resources has not resumed, and they are still turning people away. Doctors Without Borders reported that none of the AIDS clinics in its network has been able to resume work. Meanwhile, even if the freeze is ultimately lifted, it’s unclear whether Congress will reup PEPFAR for another five-year term when its funding expires in March.

Why might Congress cut funding? 
In 2023, the conservative Heritage Foundation put out a damning report saying that PEPFAR had become inefficient and politicized, “a subsidy program for giant contractors and NGOs”—overwhelmingly Democratic Party supporters—that were promoting a “leftist agenda” of LGBTQ ideology. Republican lawmakers began to balk at funding the program. Then, last month, U.S. officials said they had discovered that over the past four years, a small amount of PEPFAR money has gone to a health clinic in Mozambique that provides abortions in addition to HIV services. That’s a violation of the Helms Amendment, which prohibits U.S. government funding of abortions. Republicans now say they won’t reauthorize PEPFAR unless more oversight is added. “It is disgusting that the Biden administration has allowed taxpayer dollars to be used to perform abortions overseas,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho). “The future of the PEPFAR program is certainly in jeopardy.”

Can the program be reformed?
That process is already underway. The U.S. has secured reimbursement from Mozambique for the salaries of the four nurses who provided abortions, and clinics receiving PEPFAR money will now be required to certify that they do not offer abortion care. Some House Republicans say they might be willing to authorize a single year of funding, rather than five, to give the Trump administration time to curb the program’s bloat and “woke” excesses. But Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a vocal critic of PEPFAR as a whole. He says the fight against AIDS has been driven by pharmaceutical companies, “Africa’s cruelest and most deadly colonial overlord,” and he may advocate for PEPFAR to be canceled.

What effect would that have?
“We can very rapidly return to where the pandemic is exploding, like it was back in the 1980s,” said Steve Deeks, an HIV expert at the University of California. More than 222,000 people pick up antiretroviral drugs through PEPFAR every day. Within a week of missing their medication, their viral load will shoot up from undetectable levels to more than 100,000 viral particles per milliliter of blood, and they can become spreaders of the disease. As with antibiotics, pausing the course of treatment makes the drugs less effective when they are resumed—which means more drug-resistant variants and less of a chance at one day developing a vaccine. HIV testing, too, would stop. “It’s unlikely that we will be able to even diagnose people who need to go into treatment,” said Glenda Gray, a pediatric HIV doctor in South Africa, where a PEPFAR shutdown would add more than half a million new HIV infections over the next decade. “Children who are untreated are likely to die.”

A gift to China? 
The end of PEPFAR would “undoubtedly rebound to China’s benefit,” said Jeremy Chan of the Eurasia Group. Though China currently only spends roughly $3 billion a year on aid to Africa—a fraction of the U.S.’s pre-Trump aid budget—it has established a foothold in the region through its $1 trillion Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. And last year, China signed an agreement with the U.N. agency UNAIDS to boost spending on HIV/AIDS in Africa. If the U.S. halts its own charity, China could fill the vacuum. “If we want to continue being a superpower, we need to make sure that citizens of the world continue to like us,” said Dan Foote, former U.S. ambassador to Zambia. “Instead, we’ve started to go around and kick every ally we have in the shins. China will absolutely take advantage of the end to PEPFAR.”

 
 

Only in America

A Minnesota pastor who runs a “violence interruption” group interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting with violent threats. As the council debated plans to reallocate anti-violence funding, Rev. Jerry McAfee stormed the podium, challenged one member to a fight over “the way you lookin’ at me,” and warned the council to stop “playing games” with his funding or face consequences from “my people.” Asked if these were threats, McAfee replied, “I don’t make threats; I make promises.”

 
 
talking points

Bird flu: The viral threat pushing up egg prices

“Easter isn’t until April, but the hunt is on for eggs,” said Caroline Petrow-Cohen in the Los Angeles Times. “The breakfast staple has become pricier and harder to find” as the bird flu outbreak has worsened; in December alone, some 13 million chickens died of the disease or were culled to contain it. The average price of a dozen eggs nearly doubled over the past year to a record $4.95, and some grocery stores are now limiting how many boxes customers can buy. But “there’s a lot more at stake than the price of eggs,” said F.D. Flam in Bloomberg. At least 69 people in the U.S. have contracted avian flu, and one person—a Louisiana resident with a backyard flock of chickens—has died of the H5N1 virus. So far, the spread has only been from animal to person, with most human cases occurring in farm workers who had close contact with infected birds or dairy cows. But each new infection increases the odds that the virus will mutate to allow human-to-human transmission and “spark the next pandemic.” 

Despite that threat, the White House is “hobbling public health officials’ response” to the outbreak, said Shannon Pettypiece in NBC News. The Trump administration has fired about a quarter of the personnel at an Agriculture Department program that tracks the spread of bird flu, and has laid off some 1,200 employees at the National Institutes of Health—including many promising young disease detectives. President Trump even briefly froze almost all external communication from the Centers for Disease Control; the agency is still not issuing regular bird flu updates. “We just don’t know what’s happening,” said Michael Kilkenny, head of the Huntington Health Department in West Virginia. “We don’t know if [bird flu] is expanding into our area if we aren’t getting that communication from the CDC.” 

Bird flu will be the “first real test” for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Carolyn C. Cannuscio and Rachel Feuerstein-Simon in The Philadelphia Inquirer. If the outbreak becomes a pandemic, “our best defense would be a new vaccine”—and as the newly confirmed health and human services secretary, Kennedy will have to support its development, testing, and approval; oversee its distribution; and build public trust in the lifesaving shot. “This is a tall order for a person who has built a reputation, career, and wealth” on anti-vaccine activism, and who recently said he wanted to pause infectious disease research for eight years. But Kennedy “is the secretary of HHS we have,” so “let’s hope he meets the moment.” His performance could be “a matter of life and death.”

 
 

It wasn’t all bad

It’s hard to clean up oil spills in the Arctic, because the oil is buried under ice and snow. Workers often waste time and resources digging fruitlessly to find the leaks. But Poppy, a six-year-old springer spaniel, can sniff out the oil with ease. In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists piped diesel and condensate fuel into ice cavities around a lake in northern Ontario. Poppy found every oil deposit under 14 inches of ice without a single false positive, and now that she’s proved it’s possible, more dog detectives will be trained. “None of our available technologies right now are able to do that,” said aquatic toxicologist Vince Palace. It’s “extremely astounding.” Poppy’s trainer says she’s happiest when she’s working.

 
 
people

Brown’s animal rescue

Millie Bobby Brown talks to the animals, said Suzy Exposito in Vanity Fair. The Stranger Things star says she has few friends and not “the best social skills,” but with dogs, cows, sheep, goats, and donkeys it’s a different story. Brown, 20, has a menagerie of rescue animals on the sprawling Georgia farm where she lives with her husband, Jake Bongiovi, son of rock star Jon Bon Jovi. The actress is so dedicated to her furry charges that she even studied veterinary science at Purdue. “I’m able to treat wounds, take their pulse, moderate blood pressure, things like that. I do all their medical records myself.” 

It’s not a typical pursuit for a Hollywood star, but Brown is quick to shoot down any suggestion she’s been inspired by the back-to-basics “trad wife” fantasies dispersed on social media. “I’m not doing it for the aesthetic. There are maybe some trad wives out there doing it because it seems wholesome, but it is not. If you’re not [into] picking up horse shit or washing a cow with your bare hands, then that life is not made for you. At all.” And dirty hands are just one of the less-than-idyllic realities of farm life, according to Brown. “My animals are loud, and it’s messy and my dogs are crazy. There is so much chaos, and that is where I thrive.”

 
 

Saturday Wrap was written and edited by Theunis Bates, Chris Erikson, Bill Falk, Allan Kew, Bruno Maddox, Rebecca Nathanson, and Emily Russell.

Image credits, from top: Getty Images; AP; Getty Images; Getty Images