Dems broaden probe into Trump-era meddling at CDC
WASHINGTON >> Congressional investigators expanded their inquiry Monday of political interference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Donald Trump, citing newly obtained documents and additional reports of the administration’s meddling in government scientists’ work.
The expanded investigation centers on efforts to blunt the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs), which offer public updates on scientists’ findings. The reports had been considered sacrosanct for decades and untouchable by political appointees in the past, but Trump appointees pushed last year to edit the findings, worried that they undermined Trump’s more optimistic spin on the coronavirus pandemic.
Senior officials also discussed how to respond to a Trump appointee’s demand to edit the reports, according to a newly released email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the pandemic.
The subcommittee is requesting interviews with Anne Schuchat, a former CDC deputy director; Nancy Messonnier, a former senior official who held a variety of leadership roles at the CDC during the pandemic; and six current career staff members at the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services. The subcommittee also is requesting interviews with former Trump appointees Kyle McGowan, Amanda Campbell and Nina Witkofsky, who served as top political appointees at the CDC last year.
“Our public health institutions must never again be compromised by decisionmakers more concerned with politics than keeping Americans safe. It is therefore imperative that the Select Subcommittee’s investigations into the prior Administration’s response to the pandemic provide full accountings of what occurred,” Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., the subcommittee’s chairman, and fellow Democrats wrote in their letters to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and others.
An HHS spokesperson said the department was reviewing whether to make current staff members available for interviews and would respond directly to the subcommittee.
House Democrats also released a newly obtained email sent by a career CDC official on Aug. 9, 2020, suggesting that senior officials could meet to discuss “next steps” after then-Trump appointee Paul Alexander demanded “animmediate stopon all CDC MMWR reports.”