Did Trump close the White House office for global pandemics? Several readers wrote in to say they were confused by dueling opinion articles that appeared recently in The Washington Post. First, The Post published an op-ed by Beth Cameron, a former Obama administration official: "I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it." She argued that "eliminating the office," which she headed from September 2016 to March 2017, "has contributed to the federal government's sluggish domestic response" to the coronavirus pandemic. Three days later, The Post published an op-ed by Tim Morrison, a former Trump administration official: "No, the White House didn't 'dissolve' its pandemic response office. I was there." He countered that the global-pandemics unit, which he oversaw for about a year starting in July 2018, was folded into another office in order to streamline the White House National Security Council (NSC). Here's what we found: President Barack Obama in 2016 established the NSC's Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. A directorate has its own staff and is headed by someone who generally reports to the national security adviser. After John Bolton became President Trump's third national security adviser, he decided the NSC organizational chart was messy and the staff bloated, having grown to more than 400 people. Bolton eliminated a number of deputy national security advisers so there was just one. And he folded the global health directorate into a new one, focused on counterproliferation and biodefense. As far as we could determine, no NSC staff positions from the Obama-era pandemics office were eliminated in Bolton's reshuffling. One lingering question — which may be answered if and when Congress investigates the U.S. response to the outbreak — is whether a separate directorate would have had more clout to bring the issue immediately to the president's attention. That might have helped buy time to stem the spread of the disease by focusing the full attention of government on the emerging problem. But with Trump's erratic governing style, it's not clear whether this would have made a difference. For the full fact check, click here. Sign up for The Post's Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked within the newsletter are free to access. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. What the frack?Challenged by Sen. Bernie Sanders on climate change, former vice president Joe Biden indicated from the debate stage on Sunday that he would ban all fracking in the United States. "No more; no new fracking," Biden said amid an extended back-and-forth. Critics pounced. Republican operatives cut a short video of Biden's remarks, to use as a cudgel in races against moderate House Democrats. Sanders supporters accused Biden of misleading voters about his policy, which doesn't ban fracking outright, as Sanders would. But the Biden campaign said that he misspoke and that his position was the same as ever: He would issue no new fracking permits for federal lands or waters, while allowing existing fracking operations to continue. The result was a fractured reality: Biden's campaign retracted his remarks on debate night, so mainstream media outlets did not widely report that Biden had adopted a tougher line on fracking. Right-wing media outlets such as the Washington Free Beacon and Republican groups ran with the other story — that Biden did, indeed, come out in support of a total ban on fracking. (Taking such a position would hurt Biden's chances in swing states where fracking has been an economic boon, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.) The bottom line is that Biden misspoke but his position hasn't changed. At a campaign stop in December, Biden was asked by an environmental activist: "I've looked at your climate plan. Why doesn't it ban fracking?" Biden responded, "Because you can't ban fracking right now; you've got to transition away from it." When challenged by the activist, Biden said, "You ought to vote for somebody else." For the full fact check, click here. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22, @SarahCahlan) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | By Glenn Kessler, Meg Kelly and Sarah Cahlan ● Read more » | | | | By Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly ● Read more » | | | | 
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