Dems subpoena health officials, alleging political meddling with CDC’s Covid response

Congress took the step after health officials reportedly stonewalled their investigation

A congressional committee investigating the coronavirus response subpoenaed top health officials on Monday, including the heads of the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as part of its probe into whether the White House interfered with findings from public health experts about the Covid pandemic.

“The subpoenas were necessary because the Select Subcommittee's investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," House Democrats, who lead the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, wrote in a Monday letter accompanying the subpoenas to CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield and HHS chief Alex Azar.

The committee has been seeking transcribed interviews with seven top officials from HHS and CDC, as well as various documents, since September, but says the health agencies have been stonewalling them. 

In the committee’s letter, it alleges that in addition to slowing down the investigation, political appointees at HHS including assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo and his then-senior advisor Paul Alexander attempted to influence regular CDC reports, part of a pattern in which the committee said Trump appointees attempted to interfere with at least 13 different reports related to the virus, despite warnings from career officials this went against regular practice.

“HHS officials also attempted to muzzle CDC scientists by retaliating against career employees who provided truthful information to the public,” the committee wrote in its report.

A spokesperson for HHS denied the allegations and said the agency had been complying with the investigation – pulling more than 1 million documents for the committee – and hadn’t exerted any improper political influence over scientific and public health processes.

“The administration is leading an unprecedented nationwide vaccination effort in response to a global pandemic and has been extremely cooperative with the subcommittee,” the spokesperson told The Independent. “While the administration is focused on vaccination shots, the subcommittee is focused on cheap shots to create headlines and mislead the American people.”

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

The committee’s letter outlines multiple incidents it says shows attempts to put political pressure on the public health officials at the CDC.

Mr Alexander, who no longer is employed by HHS, allegedly attempted at the time to change the title and contents of a May report to include praise for the Trump administration’s “[s]trong mitigation and containment measures” of the coronavirus, and to downplay the idea that the coronavirus had entered the US before it was detected. An HHS spokesperson said Mr Alexander’s communications “absolutely did not shape Department policy or strategy”.

HHS deputy assistant secretary Bill Hall reportedly warned Mr Caputo, Mr Alexander and others that these sorts of communications weren’t standard practice.

“As a matter of long-standing policy, we do not engage in clearing scientific articles, as that arena needs to remain an independent process,” he said, according to the subpoena letter.

Still, Mr. Alexander reportedly continued reaching out to CDC officials directly in regards to their reports on issues like virus spread and hydroxychloroquine, a medicine the president had prematurely touted as a “miracle cure".

In another exchange in July, Mr Alexander took a CDC official to task over a draft report  about an outbreak at a Georgia summer camp.

“I find it incredible this piece would be put out the way it is written at a time when CDC and its leader Dr. Redfield is trying to showcase the school re-open guidance and the push is to help schools re-open safely,” Mr Alexander wrote, according to the committee. “It just sends the wrong message as written and actually reads as if to send a message of NOT to re-open.”

The committee also alleges CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield instructed staff to destroy a key document related to the investigation, and raised the possibility there could have been a wider cover-up.

The congressional investigators want answers to the subpoenas by the end of December.