U.S. Home Oversight and Reform Subcommittee Chairman James E. Clyburn (D-SC).
Graeme Jennings | Getty Photographs
Democratic lawmakers launched an investigation Monday into studies that Trump administration appointees tried to intervene with coronavirus studies from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
A Home subcommittee on the pandemic is requesting interviews with officers from the CDC and the Division of Well being and Human Providers, in addition to a slew of paperwork, citing studies displaying aides to President Donald Trump “sought to assist him downplay the dangers of the coronavirus disaster by trying to change, delay, and block crucial scientific studies from CDC.”
The probe, led by Home Minority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., comes after Politico reported HHS communications aides pushing to evaluate or change the CDC’s studies on Covid-19.
The Democrats stated in a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield that they search “to find out the scope of political interference with CDC’s scientific studies and different efforts to fight the pandemic, the influence of this interference on CDC’s mission, whether or not this interference is continuous, and the steps that Congress might must take to cease it earlier than extra People die needlessly.”
HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo, who is called within the letter as one of many aides who reportedly sought to meddle within the CDC’s work on Covid-19, didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
The letter notes Trump himself, in accordance with a bombshell recording launched by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, admitted in March that he wanted to downplay the threat of the virus.
“I wished to all the time play it down. I nonetheless like enjoying it down, as a result of I do not wish to create a panic,” Trump could be heard saying.
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