FOLLOW-UP: Communications with Senator Ron Johnson's Staff, March 14-15, 2024

This is a follow-up about communications with U.S. Senator Ron Johnson’s staff, in the wake of my posting about an incident during a Twitter/X “Space” on Wednesday.

You can find summary of what happened — and two related updates — in my previous post:

At the invitation of Senator Johnson’s staff, I sent the following email:

From: Jessica Hockett
Subject: Senator Johnson's position on the New York City spring 2020 death event Date: March 14, 2024 at 2:17:20 PM CDT To: chandler_rebel@ronjohnson.senate.gov Cc: press@ronjohnson.senate.gov

Good day, Mr. Rebel (& Senator Johnson & Staff):

Yesterday, during an X Space, my friend Shannon Adcock attempted to direct Senator Johnson to my investigation of the New York City mass-casualty event of spring 2020. 

The Senator is no doubt aware that the five boroughs reportedly experienced the death-equivalent of ten World Trade Center disasters (~27,000 people), above and beyond a “normal” level of death.

Unfortunately, data obtained via freedom information requests to city, state, and federal agencies & from extant public sources either challenges or directly contradicts official claims about what occurred in New York, to what extent, and why. 

This includes (but isn’t limited to) the timing and scale of deaths, what happened in or with hospitals, emergency medical services, the medical examiner's office, sudden cardiac arrests at home. 

Given Senator Johnson's public commitment to making sure that governing authorities, public health officials, the pharmaceutical industry, and other responsible parties are held accountable for their actions & malfeasance in the COVID Era, I respectfully request that he make a clear public statement that addresses:

a) his level of familiarity with data from/related to the COVID-19 event in New York City specifically, between March 1, 2020 and May 31, 2020;

b) what he believes or assumes happened in New York City in spring 2020, and why; and

c) whether he believes a federal investigation into what happened is needed - and why or why not.

Regards,

Jessica Hockett, PhD

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Kiersten Pels, Communication Director quickly replied:

From: "Pels, Kiersten (Ron Johnson)" <Kiersten_Pels@ronjohnson.senate.gov> Subject: Senator Johnson's position on the New York City spring 2020 death event Date: March 14, 2024 at 3:25:24 PM CDT To: "jessicahockett@me.com" <jessicahockett@me.com> Cc: "Rebel, Chandler (Ron Johnson)" <Chandler_Rebel@ronjohnson.senate.gov>

Hi Jessica,

Thanks for reaching out!

Senator Johnson is aware of news reports regarding New York’s mismanagement of the pandemic. For example, elderly patients sent to nursing homes where they infect others, hospital protocols that might have done far more harm than good, etc.  He’s also sensitive to the fact that NYC experienced the first wave before much was known, and doctors were scrambling to understand what they were dealing with.  He has not specifically done oversight on any particular city, state, or region’s response to the coronavirus, but he is more than willing to look at any data that other investigators are willing to share. If warranted, he would certainly open up his own investigation/oversight. 

If you could send us whatever data or evidence that you find most compelling, the senator would be more than happy to take a look.

Thanks!

Kiersten Pels | COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

U.S. Senator for Wisconsin, Ron Johnson

[Phone number removed by J. Hockett]

Email: Kiersten_pels@ronjohnson.senate.gov

Twitter: @KierstenPels

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I responded:

From: Jessica Hockett
Subject: Re: Senator Johnson's position on the New York City spring 2020 death event
Date: March 15, 2024 at 8:58:31 AM CDT
To: "Pels, Kiersten (Ron Johnson)" <Kiersten_Pels@ronjohnson.senate.gov>
Cc: "Rebel, Chandler (Ron Johnson)" <Chandler_Rebel@ronjohnson.senate.gov>

Hi Kiersten.

Thank you for your response.

This is your summary of Senator Johnson’s perspective. My request was for Senator Johnson to make a public statement. 

I see that you and Mr. Rebel have deleted responses to me on X and Substack, respectively. (Screenshots of original replies are attached.) 

In one Substack comment that has not been deleted, Mr. Rebel said, “Please submit your questions and comments in your email to me and Senators said he will answer them on X.”

To this end, here is my request reframed as questions, directly addressed to Senator Johnson: 

Senator Johnson, 

You have demonstrated a strong  public commitment to making sure that governing authorities, public health officials, the pharmaceutical industry, and other responsible parties are held accountable for their actions & malfeasance in the COVID Era. My research and investigate for the past few years has focused on New York City’s mass-casualty event in New York. I am deeply concerned by what I see in data related to the event that I’ve obtained & analyzed from city, state, and federal agencies. My questions for you follow:

1) How familiar are you with data from/related to the COVID-19 event in New York City - specifically between March 1, 2020 and May 31, 2020?

2) What do you believe or assume happened to cause the New York City’s spring 2020 death event? 

3) Do you believe a federal investigation into the New York City event — which is the biggest mass-casualty event the city has ever experienced, i.e., the equivalent of ten World Trade Center disasters — is needed? Why or why not?

Please let me know when to expect the Senator’s answers on X.

Regards,

Jessica Hockett

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I will copy/paste any response(s) I receive today in this post.

UPDATE, 4:03 p.m. Central U.S.

Kiersten Pels replied:

On Mar 15, 2024, at 11:40 AM, Pels, Kiersten (Ron Johnson) <Kiersten_Pels@ronjohnson.senate.gov> wrote:

Hi Jessica,

Chandler commented in order to give you his personal email address. After you contacted us, we deleted our messages in an attempt to stop us from being spammed by other Twitter users. We would sincerely appreciate if you did not share or promote our contact information with the general public now that you have it. We are always happy to respond to individuals with specific concerns however. Thank you so much for understanding. 

You said that you have “data related to the event that I’ve obtained & analyzed from city, state, and federal agencies.”

Can you please send me this data so that we could review it? 

Thank you!

Kiersten 

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My response:

On Mar 15, 2024, at 3:37 PM, Jessica Hockett wrote:

Hi Kiersten.

To clarify, the address Chandler posted is a government-issued/taxypayer-funded email address. An individual professional email address is not a personal email address (at least not insofar as public records laws are concerned). I understand not wanting a lot of emails/messages, but there is no violation of privacy or doxing involved.

The federal government’s central claim that New York City experienced ~27,000 deaths above normal in 11 weeks is not only specious on its face, officials have released no proof the event occurred in real-time.

Unlike with the World Trade Center disaster (~2,800 casualties), there is no list of names of the dead.  Unlike Illinois, Massachusetts, and other states, there is no way to obtain death certificates under FOIA.  Unlike Chicago and Milwaukee, the NYC medical examiner does not have a public database of deaths processed.

There are too many “red flags” to cover in an email, but this is a good “foundational” article I wrote with colleagues on some of the many reasons to suspect the New York City daily death curve is false https://pandata.org/does-new-york-city-2020-make-any-sense/ A shorter version of the ideas via “slides” is here.

In addition, there are

• dubious and unsubstantiated claims about hospitals being overwhelmed- including Elmhurst “epicenter” hospital” 

• public agencies and officials delaying, hiding, failing to release public data (example, example, example)

• no apparent requirements for public officials to explain anomalies that are within the purview of their responsibilities. 

• widespread explanations for the death toll - like ventilators and “the nursing home policy” - that don’t make sense with available data or the timeline of events

• no explanations for the sudden spike in cardiac arrest deaths at home - which is the biggest “died suddenly” home death event of the past four years in the U.S., as far I can tell 

If the New York City event did NOT occur as presented by official data, it poses a serious challenge to the U.S. Federal Government’s affirmation of the WHO pandemic declaration — and to many things Senator Johnson has himself believed, been led to believe, or has claimed publicly. 

Although I asked the Senator for his thoughts about whether a federal inquiry is needed, because the federal government “certified” this event I’m not sure he or anyone in Congress would be in the position to lead an inquiry. 

I have not yet published the NYC FEMA funeral allowance death data I received from that agency but plan to do so soon. I see Mr. Rebel subscribed to my Substack, so he will see that when it posts. Suffice to say, it does not substantiate the number of deaths the purportedly occurred in March, April, and May of 2020. 

I am happy to meet publicly or discuss any of the data I have gathered and have written about. All of my Substack posts related to New York are here.  

Please let me know when/if I can expect Senator Johnson to respond on X to my questions.

Thank you for your interest and enjoy your weekend,

Jessica Hockett

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