COVID inquiry: Matt Hancock’s defence seems unlikely to have changed many minds
Ever since Matt Hancock was forced to resign for kissing his closest aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his office – in breach of his own COVID guidelines – the former health secretary has been trying to defend his record.
The now ex-cabinet minister appeared on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here as he sought to rehabilitate his reputation with the public and defend his handling of the pandemic.
He wrote a book, The Pandemic Diaries, that offered his version of events ahead of the official COVID inquiry, and he gave countless interviews defending his actions, be it around the protection – or lack thereof – of care homes, the pandemic plan, or his handling of government PPE contracts.
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Given all of that, I didn’t really expect Mr Hancock to turn up at the official inquiry today and offer some retrospection of what he got wrong, as well as where he thought he was right.
With utter predictability, the former health secretary sought to cast himself as the man who single-handedly tried to wake up a sluggish Whitehall machine to the threat, and who was thwarted by the “toxic culture” in Number 10 and government that prevented him from slowing down the spread of the virus.
This wasn’t so much self-reflection, but self-protection. In his version of events, Mr Hancock was never part of the problem, but always trying to find the solution.
That, of course, is not how other former aides and officials recall what happened during the pandemic.
Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara told the inquiry Mr Hancock displayed “nuclear levels” of overconfidence, and that he regularly told colleagues in Number 10 things that “they later discovered weren’t true”.
Boris Johnson’s top adviser, Dominic Cummings, said he was a “proven liar” and “unfit for the job”.
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Hancock ‘wanted to decide who should live’
The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told the inquiry Mr Hancock had a “habit” of saying things that weren’t true, while the former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill told his hearing he would have to “double-check” things to make sure the then-health secretary “wasn’t over-promising”.
To all those accusations of lying, Mr Hancock told inquiry barrister Hugo Keith simply that he had not lied and there was “no evidence from anybody who I worked with in the department or the health system who supported those false allegations”.
In other words, it was “them” – Number 10 and the Cabinet Office – versus “us” – Mr Hancock and his health department team.
But trying to cast these claims and counterclaims as a feature of turf wars between different government factions wasn’t so easy on Thursday as Mr Hancock brought another to the inquiry that wasn’t backed up by any evidence.
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‘How’s your eyesight Mr Cummings?’
He claimed he told Mr Johnson a lockdown was necessary on 13 March 2020 – 10 days before the country was shut down.
Mr Cummings immediately tweeted that Mr Hancock was “flat out lying” and had been pushing the herd immunity plan at the time, rather than a lockdown.
The inquiry barrister also questioned the claim, noting Mr Hancock had made no such entry in his book, and there was no written evidence in the thousands of pieces of documentation acquired by the inquiry to back up his versions of events.
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In fact, he pointed out that when Mr Hancock sent WhatsApps to the prime minister on the 13 and 14 March there, was nothing about an immediate lockdown mentioned at all.
When he walked into the inquiry this morning, Mr Hancock was asked by the crowd outside whether “he lied his way through this pandemic”.
And what we heard from the former health secretary today was a version of events at odds with other testimony.
He went into defend his record, but it is hard to see that he came out changing many minds.
US President Donald Trump’s crypto businesses are drawing increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beginning to influence the progress of US digital asset legislation. As Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives unveiled their draft of a digital asset market structure bill on May 5, Democrats prepared for a united response to Donald Trump’s deepening connections with the industry.
Speaking to Cointelegraph on May 5, a Democratic staffer with knowledge of the matter said that House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters planned to lead some members of her party out of a Republican-led hearing discussing digital assets. The May 6 hearing, entitled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets” and led by Committee Chair French Hill, could address draft legislation proposed by Republican lawmakers to establish a crypto market regulatory structure.
In a May 5 statement, Rep. Hill and three top Republicans unveiled the draft bill, which could clarify the treatment of digital assets by the US’s financial regulators: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Hill and others echoed some of Trump’s talking points on crypto — e.g, making the US a “crypto capital of the world” — suggesting deference to the president’s previously announced policies.
The draft bill included a provision requiring the SEC and CFTC to issue joint rules defining digital commodities. According to the text, transactions involving digital commodities “shall be deemed not to be an offer or sale of an investment contract” as long as the purchaser did not have “an ownership interest or other interest in the revenues, profits, or assets.”
According to the Democratic staffer, rules required all members of the House Financial Services Committee to agree to move forward with the digital asset hearing, suggesting that Waters intended to block the Republican-controlled event and conduct a shadow hearing to explore Trump’s and his family’s ties to the crypto industry. At least nine Democrats have reportedly considered a similar move to oppose a proposed stablecoin bill in the Senate.
Calls for impeachment, criticism from both sides
Some members of Congress have already called for Trump’s impeachment after he offered the opportunity for some of his top memecoin holders to tour the White House and attend a private dinner. In addition to the memecoin, the president’s family has backed the firm World Liberty Financial, which recently launched its own stablecoin, and an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm used the USD1 stablecoin to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance.
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Waters, according to the staffer, requested that Hill and Republicans amend any proposed legislation to explicitly prevent potential conflicts of interest in which Trump could personally enrich himself through crypto ventures. Cointelegraph reached out to Hill’s office but did not receive a response at the time of publication. The Arkansas lawmaker reportedly said in March that the Trump family’s involvement in the crypto industry makes related legislation “more complicated.”
Republican lawmakers in the United States currently have control of the House, Senate, and presidency. At least two senators supportive of Trump have criticized his memecoin dinner, hinting that the president was selling access to his office. It’s unclear at the time of publication who among the memecoin holders could attend the May 22 dinner in person.
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This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
Asset manager VanEck has asked US regulators for permission to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) holding BNB, the native token of Binance’s BNB Chain, regulatory filings show.
The ETF is designed to accumulate spot BNB (BNB) tokens and “may, from time to time, stake a portion of the [fund’s] assets through one or more trusted staking providers,” according to the ETF’s S-1 prospectus. The filing marks the first time an asset manager has filed for a BNB ETF in the United States.
The BNB token has a market capitalization of roughly $84 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. As of May 5, BNB stakers earn a yield of approximately 2.5%, according to data from Stakingrewards.com.
Binance’s BNB Chain is among the most popular smart contract networks, with a total value locked (TVL) of nearly $6 billion, according to data from DefiLlama.
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Bitcoin’s “spillover” effect?
The filing comes days after Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao reportedly said he expects the popularity of Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs to eventually “spill over” into altcoins.
“This cycle so far has been the ETFs. And it’s almost all Bitcoin. Ether hasn’t had as much success but Bitcoin success will spill over to the others eventually,” CZ reportedly said during the Token2049 conference in Dubai.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted net inflows of more than $40 billion since launching in January of 2024, according to data from Farside Investors.
VanEck’s filing is the newest in a flurry of filings seeking to list ETFs holding altcoins.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has acknowledged dozens of cryptocurrency ETF proposals since US President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.
They include plans for ETFs holding native layer-1 tokens such as Solana (SOL) as well as memecoins such as Dogecoin (DOGE).
VanEck has filed to list other cryptocurrency ETFs over the past few months, including funds holding Solana and Avalanche (AVAX).
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Crypto users are weighing in as Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius Network, prepares to stand before a judge on May 8 to face sentencing for commodities fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of the platform’s token.
In a May 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), prosecutors released several impact statements from individuals affected by the collapse of Celsius filed after the initial deadline. Though at least one suggested clemency for the former CEO, many told the court about the financial and personal losses caused by the crypto firm filing for bankruptcy, and hinted that Mashinsky should be held accountable for misrepresenting the company.
“Many of the people who participated in this fraud, benefited from this fraud, and potentially orchestrated this fraud will get away with zero legal consequences,” said Daniel Frishberg of Hillsborough County, Florida, in an April 24 statement. “Please do not allow Mr. Mashinsky to be one of those people (such as with probation/house arrest, as some people supporting him have requested). Please throw the book at him.”
Prosecutors have requested that Mashinsky serve up to 20 years in prison for his role in Celsius’ fraud, while the former CEO’s legal team asked for a year and one day. The judge will consider guidelines and victim statements at sentencing on May 8.
Calls for leniency and harsh prison time
Not everyone who sent in a letter to the prosecutors seemed to be in favor of Mashinsky being sent away for decades, as was former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried. SBF stood before a different federal judge in the same district in March 2024 and was handed a 25-year sentence, which he is currently serving in a California prison.
“While Celsius [sic] collapse caused significant losses, particularly for Bitcoin holders, shareholders, and borrowers, despite his mistakes, Mr. Mashinsky was, at times, the more conservative voice in an industry overflowing with unchecked greed,” said Artur Abreu in a victim impact statement.
“The twenty-year sentence suggested by the US DOJ is fair in my opinion, as Mashinsky caused pain and suffering for many crypto investors across the globe – even resulting in suicide for some of those involved,” said Web3 Deep Dive podcast host and former Cointelegraph reporter Rachel Wolfson, who lost access to Bitcoin worth about $5,000 at the time. “Harsh punishment for bad actors in the crypto industry has become necessary to ensure that the space legitimizes over time.”
Mashinsky’s sentencing will be one of the first in significant crypto cases in the district since Jay Clayton became interim US Attorney for SDNY. A Trump appointee, Clayton was previously the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a crypto proponent on many issues.
Critics have suggested that Clayton would take a softer approach to crypto enforcement, given his ties to Wall Street firms and the industry. However, he also released a statement in April regarding a $12-million crypto case, suggesting that he supported accountability for fraudulent actions. His response to Mashinsky’s sentencing and other future cases could be a bellwether for the US Attorney’s approach to crypto.
Related: US prosecutors file over 200 victim statements in Celsius ex-CEO’s case
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