In the middle of the latest Mess That is Michael, there is another Trumpian smoke and mirrors petty corruption scam.
Federal Employees have some Gold Standard employee benefits and protections, that’s for sure. Taxpayer funded 100%, that is by you and me folks. No private donations, no Trump campaign reimbursement, no private Dark Money donors, or Red Hat wearing small ball donors.
Here’s the Caputo layout. He became a Federal Employee on April 16, 2020. Appointed, not selected through a normal Civil Service competitive appointment procedure, but never mind. As of his employment date, he earns 4 hours of sick leave for every 2-week federal pay period (80 hours of service). As a former federal employee (US Army, US AID [about 4 years total]) he also earns 6 hours of annual leave per 2-week federal pay period, instead of the usual 4 hours.
From April 16 until September 16, let’s call it 22 weeks or a total of 11 pay periods. Caputo has earned 44 hours of sick leave so far, assuming he hasn’t used any up til now.
His just announced 2-month medical leave will require 8 weeks or 4 pay periods of 80 hours sick leave credit or a leave balance of 320 hours in order to be approved as legal and proper under Federal law. He doesn’t have it.
In passing, what job do you know of where a new employee (less than 5 months on the job) can pull a 60-day paid medical leave to cover up for an on the job screwup? Paid for by honest, hard-working US taxpayers, themselves further burdened by the actions of the very scam artist asking for Sick Leave. A new kind of lesser Lizzie Borden scam.
This is just nuts. It is also the Time of Trump.
Now this is the Federal Government we are talking about, so there is some flex. In an extremely generous extra provided to federal workers, intended for legitimate purposes, Supervisors can grant a Medical Leave Advance to a deserving federal employee up to 30 days or 240 hours.
Michael is still short under the extra generous rules, following the Law and Governing Regulations for all federal employees.
But there is one more extremely generous benefit available to federal employees. They can request some annual leave to be converted to sick leave. Here Caputo has earned 66 hours of annual leave since April, less 24 hours for the Memorial Day, July Fourth, and Labor Day holidays just past, or a total of 40 hours accrued.
That gets him up to a combined available potential sick leave total of 324 hours maxed out, if he has not taken any annual leave except the 3 days above, nor used any sick leave since he joined the Federal service in April.
It is just possible that this sudden 60-day Medical Leave stunt is barely legal, pulling all the stops. Barely legal it may or may not be, but aromatically stinky it surely is.
US taxpayers are to be on the hook for another incompetent disturbed grifter who Azar doesn’t have the guts to fire after he has stepped all over the President’s already damaged COVID-19 story, lying in tatters after Woodward’s tapes are hitting the air waves and TV screens.
And Trump, furious though he may privately be at the utter cock-up this is causing for his Re-Election Effort, is too much of a Wuss himself to pull the plug on this Goofball and issue his fantasy strongman Go To line “You’re Fired”.
Where is Dopey Toad Azar, and what about Mark Meadows, the disappearing Cheshire Cat of White House Chiefs of Staff? And Kushner is no doubt cooking up another campaign related Roll Out for the Final 30 days for something else in another corner of the White House.
That nasty little virus has now even infected the inner Publicity Sanctum of HHS and Trump’s Pandemic Excuse Train. Train off the tracks, rail cars burning.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a former Federal Employee, and I approve of their generous sick leave benefits, often understood as a partial trade-off for employees taking a lower salary than they might receive for the same work in private industry. I have certainly benefitted personally from the generous sick leave and annual leave policies in place for those in our essential and critical Federal workforce.
But those benefits are intended for real illnesses, you know like cancer, diabetes, strokes, heart disease and others, not to camouflage a FAKE cover your ass retreat from public view disappearance of a nutty spokesman and conspiracy theorist.
For the record, there is no such medical thing as a 60-day medical screening protocol for lymphatic issues (as Caputo would have you believe), even in Trump World. This is utter nonsense. Pseudo expert medical gibberish aimed at the apparently numerous Red Hat know nothings.
For those not Michael savvy, he has also had a MAGA Quick Reaction Force on phone standby since February 2019. No, I shit you not. I wish I could make this stuff up.
If Michael Caputo needs mental health treatment, he should surely get it, but he doesn’t deserve public funding for what is quite obviously a pre-existing medical condition, dating from well before his term of public service began in April 2020.
Isn’t that the public legal position Trump.45 is arguing in Court at this very moment?
Man Up, and say Caputo Just Fucked the Duck and now it’s time for him to go.
Goose and Gander Sauce, Fellas.
Instead we get just one more petty larceny theft from the Public Trough, on Michael’s noisy way put the door.
Indulge below as far as your gastrointestinal fortitude permits.
Parts of the Saga of Michael to the Present Day
From Shooting the Messenger Blog (February 19, 2019):
Former Trump campaign communications adviser Michael R. Caputo has created a new mass text system to alert nearby Donald J. Trump supporters to Antifa protests of his home and office.
The new system was announced on the MAGA Quick Reaction Force website (MAGA-QRF.com), which was registered by Caputo’s public relations company in November shortly after anti-fascist protesters targeted the Washington, D.C. home of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“My family has endured dozens of threats of death and violence due to my high-profile Trump connection and my involvement as a witness in the bogus Russia investigation,” Caputo said in a statement published on MAGA-QRF.com. “I’ve developed a way to push back on Antifa protesting outside my home or office, which is more likely than you might think…I assembled a group of 200 nearby Trump supporters who have pledged to come on a moment’s notice to assemble peacefully between my house and the Antifa protestors to assure my wife and children don’t even see them.”
From the Washington Post (September 16, 2020):
The health department’s top communications official is taking a medical leave, three days after urging President Trump’s supporters to prepare for an armed insurrection and accusing government scientists of “sedition,” the agency announced Wednesday.
Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, leveled the accusations and promoted other conspiracy theories in a Facebook Live event on Sunday.
HHS said in a statement released early afternoon that Caputo would be on leave for the next 60 days to “focus on his health and the well-being of his family.” That means he will be gone until after the Nov. 3 election.
The agency also said that Paul Alexander, a top aide to Caputo, would be leaving the agency permanently. Alexander came under scrutiny in recent weeks for his efforts to exert control over the messages coming from scientists and top health officials, including the content of weekly science reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to make them conform to the president’s assertions the virus is under control.
In a statement, Caputo said he decided to take a temporary medical leave to “pursue necessary screenings for a lymphatic issue discovered last week.” He also said he has been losing weight for months, which he initially attributed to a new exercise and diet regimen before realizing other factors might be contributing.
Caputo also said that violent threats against his family were contributing to his stress level. He expressed thanks to Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, for conferring with his personal physician.
“My experience mirrors that of many Americans,” Caputo said in his statement. “Every American battling COVID — in every city in every state across the nation — has been under enormous pressure. I am just one of them.”
From CNN (September 16, 2020):
“These people cannot, cannot allow America to get better. Nor can they allow America to hear good news. It must be all bad news from now until the election. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, that’s sedition,” Caputo said during the rant, which was broadcast live from his personal Facebook page on Sunday.
“They are sacrificing lives in order to defeat Donald Trump. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s sedition. It’s also … you know, call it what you want, but when they let somebody get sick and die, there’s one word for that,” he said.
Caputo also said that “partisan Democrats, the conjugal media, and the scientists, the deep state scientists want America sick through November. They cannot afford for us to have any good news before November because they are already losing.”
A source familiar with the matter said Caputo portrayed himself as a victim in his apology on Tuesday, but apologized for putting HHS Secretary Alex Azar in a bad light.
In his statement on Wednesday, Caputo praised the members of the White House coronavirus task force and affirmed a shared mission of working to defeat the coronavirus. He notably singled out Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose warnings have often been dismissed or downplayed by the Trump administration.
“I’ve learned so much in friendship with the doctors of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. Sometimes we disagree, but we work in unity to defeat the virus and we care for one another,” Caputo said. “I want to thank Dr. Tony Fauci for conferring with my personal physician as we get the health care I long needed, and yet neglected, through the pandemic.”
From the New York Times (September 15, 2020):
WASHINGTON — Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary of health for public affairs, apologized Tuesday morning to the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, and to his staff members for a bizarre and incendiary Facebook outburst in which he accused federal government scientists working on the pandemic of “sedition” and warned of coming violence from left-wing “hit squads.”
He is considering a leave of absence to address physical health problems, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Mr. Caputo, 58, a longtime Trump loyalist, told dozens of staff members in a hastily scheduled meeting that he was under stress because of questions about his physical health and threats to his safety and that of his family. He apologized for embarrassing Mr. Azar and the department.
It was unclear Tuesday whether Mr. Caputo had seriously endangered his job with his soliloquy Sunday night, which drew national attention. Among other statements that administration critics called breathtaking, he accused the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of harboring a “resistance unit” dedicated to ousting President Trump, urged his gun-owning followers to buy ammunition because “it’s going to be hard to get” and said his mental health “had definitely failed.”
Some White House officials were unhappy about his remarks, but any decision about Mr. Caputo’s future in the government was expected to rest with Mr. Trump.
Asked about Mr. Caputo during a trip to Nashville, Mr. Azar called him a “valued” member of the coronavirus response team. “Obviously, some of those statements are concerning,” he told The Tennessean, but added: “I’m not going to comment on somebody’s personal social media posts.”
Mr. Caputo has about 5,000 friends on Facebook and at one point suggested that his followers publicly release his video presentation should anything happen to him.
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, urged Mr. Azar to fire Mr. Caputo. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Mr. Azar should resign, charging he had allowed “perhaps the most important federal agency right now to become subservient to the president’s whims.”
A department spokeswoman called Mr. Schumer’s comments “uninformed” and misleading, and an effort to discredit “the historic work of the Trump administration” in battling the pandemic.
Since he was installed at the 80,000-employee department in April by the White House, Mr. Caputo, a media-savvy former Trump campaign aide with no background in health, has worked aggressively to control the media strategy on pandemic issues. But over the weekend, he was engulfed in two explosive controversies of his own making.
First Politico, then The New York Times and other news outlets published accounts of how Mr. Caputo and a top aide, Dr. Paul Alexander, had routinely worked to revise, delay or even scuttle the core health bulletins of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in an effort to paint the administration’s pandemic response in a more positive light. The C.D.C.’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports had previously been so thoroughly shielded from political interference that political appointees only saw them just before they were published.
Then on Monday, a Times article about his Facebook Live presentation created a new public relations debacle for him and the department. In a statement that day, Mr. Caputo said that since the spring, he and his family had been continually harassed and threatened, including by some individuals who he said were being prosecuted. He said he appreciated the president’s understanding.
It was highly unusual for Mr. Caputo to hire Dr. Alexander, who critiqued the C.D.C. reports, to serve as his scientific adviser. In emails obtained by Politico, Dr. Alexander complained that the C.D.C. was “writing hit pieces on the administration” and insisted that it should be prevented from issuing weekly reports “unless I read and agree with the findings.”
Mr. Caputo hailed Dr. Alexander as a “genius” in his Facebook talk. McMaster University in Canada had listed him as an assistant professor on its website, but on Monday, the university said that while Dr. Alexander had received his doctorate there, he was not on the faculty.
“He is not currently teaching and he is not paid by the university for his contract role as a part-time assistant professor,” a spokeswoman, Susan Emigh, said.
From the Wikipedia entry for Michael Caputo:
Michael Raymon Caputo (born March 24, 1962) is an American political strategist and lobbyist. In April 2020, Caputo was appointed as assistant secretary of public affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration. He worked for the Reagan Administration with Oliver North, and later as director of media services on the campaign for President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 United States presidential election. Caputo moved to Russia in 1994, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was an adviser to Boris Yeltsin. He worked for Gazprom Media in 2000 where he worked on improving the image of Vladimir Putin in the U.S. He moved back to the U.S. and founded a public relations company, and then moved to Ukraine to work on a candidate’s campaign for parliament.
Caputo was campaign manager for Carl Paladino’s failed 2010 bid for Governor of New York. Caputo worked for the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign from November 2015 to June 2016, and was in charge of communications for New York. He left the campaign after publicly supporting the removal of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Caputo was investigated by the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Caputo was employed by Republican politicians such as Congressman Jack Kemp. He gained experience in crisis management and working for the insurance company operated by his father. Caputo was mentored by Roger J. Stone Jr. in the ways of political advisement, and became his personal driver. He learned from Stone that political campaigns could be turned into wins for candidates if the public found them entertaining.
From the Buffalo News (July 16, 2017):
He joined the Army, was introduced to communications, discovered a passion for Republican politics and attended the University at Buffalo.
He was a writer for Congressman Jack Kemp’s presidential campaign and worked with Central and South American contras through the Council for Inter-American Security, pounding Ronald Reagan’s anti-Communism propaganda drum. He handled media operations for the House of Representatives and the failed George Bush/Dan Quayle re-election campaign.
Caputo went to Russia in 1994, he says, “to watch the Soviet Union die.” He originally was dispatched to Moscow by the Clinton administration to help Russians understand democratic principles under the U.S. Agency for International Development.
From the Buffalo News (March 5, 2016):
Caputo signed on as a writer for Congressman Jack Kemp in his White House bid. After that campaign failed, he moved on to Central and South America – where he rubbed elbows with Iran-Contra figure Oliver North – doing his part to spread Reagan’s anti-communist doctrine through PR and propaganda.
Caputo was one of half a dozen young “light-skinned gringos” who connected politicians, journalists and other public opinion influencers with rebels and other political allies in Latin America, according to J. Michael Waller, who oversaw Caputo’s work for the now-defunct Council for Inter-American Security.
“We believed in the cause,” Waller said, “and we were willing to work for next to nothing.”
Caputo later employed his media skills with the House of Representatives and the failed George Bush/Dan Quayle re-election campaign. He also took on side projects, like the successful push to resurrect the canceled “Twin Peaks” television series.
Selected Additional References about Michael Caputo:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-and-russia-all-the-moguls-men
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/russia-trump-putin-scandal-key-players-dossiers/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/caputo-virus.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/trump-hhs-aide-caputo-attacks-cdc-warns-of-insurrection.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/how-michael-caputo-shook-up-hhs-416632
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics/michael-caputo-hhs-spokesperson/index.html
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Michael_Caputo
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Michael_Caputo
https://radiotv.house.gov/about-the-gallery
https://investigaterussia.org/players/michael-caputo