CDC director Robert Redfield 'told staff to delete email that showed Trump administration attempts to meddle in COVID reports', probe claims
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been accused of directing staff to delete an email that showed the Trump administration meddling in official COVID-19 reports.
Dr Robert Redfield is said to have made the order concerning an August 8 message sent to his agency from the now-departed Health and Human Services adviser, Dr. Paul Alexander.
The note asked that the CDC go back into a scientific report it had already published about coronavirus risks to children and splice in new language, or 'pull it down and stop all reports immediately.' As required by law, federal officials are supposed to be scrupulous about retaining records.
The email went on to say that 'CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school reopening.' It added: 'Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear. ... This is designed to hurt this Presidnet [sic] for their reasons which I am not interested in.'
Redfield has already testified that he has not been subject to political pressure. HHS also released a brief statement from Redfield in which he said he had instructed agency staffers to ignore the email but did not mention ordering its deletion.
But Dr. Charlotte Kent told congressional investigators she was ordered to delete it, according to a transcript released Thursday. Kent testified that she believed Redfield made that demand.
Kent told congressional investigators that the email was addressed to her, Redfield and possibly others. She said she was ordered to delete it the following day, a Sunday. But when she went to look for it, it was already gone.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield has been accused of directing staff to delete an email that showed the Trump administration meddling in official COVID-19 reports
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who released the partial transcript, said the testimony of Dr. Kent raises 'serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials´ response to the coronavirus crisis'.
He wrote: 'I am deeply concerned that the Trump administration's political meddling with the nation's coronavirus response has put American lives at greater risk, and that administration officials may have taken steps to conceal and destroy evidence of this dangerous conduct.'
In a letter to HHS Alex Azar, Clyburn accused the administration of trying to obstruct his investigation and threatened to issue subpoenas to compel the release of documents.
Clyburn chairs a special House panel empowered to broadly examine the coronavirus crisis and the government's response.
HHS said in a statement that Clyburn's committee is 'not operating in good faith' and called its portrayal of the CDC official's testimony 'irresponsible.'
Dr. Charlotte Kent told congressional investigators she was ordered to delete the email, according to a transcript released Thursday. Kent testified that she believed Redfield made that demand
A spokesman said: 'The subcommittee's characterization of the conversation with Dr. Kent is irresponsible.
'We urge the subcommittee to release the transcript in full which will show that during her testimony Dr. Kent repeatedly said there was no political interference in the MMWR process.'
The ranking Republican on the investigative panel, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, said Democrats have found 'zero evidence of actual interference in CDC scientific reports.'
Working with then-HHS top spokesperson Michael Caputo, Alexander, who wrote the email, was brought into the department at a time of high tension between White House officials and Azar.
Caputo and Alexander represented the White House at HHS, a bureaucracy that President Donald Trump was deeply suspicious of.
Kent occupies a high perch in that bureaucracy as CDC's chief of scientific publications and editor-in-chief of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR, a publication that tracks disease trends of interest to the medical community.
Rep. James Clyburn said he is 'deeply concerned that the Trump administration's political meddling with the nation's coronavirus response has put American lives at greater risk'. Trump is pictured last week
MMWR has become a flashpoint for controversy under Trump.
Redfield said Thursday in a statement that 'regarding the email in question, I instructed CDC staff to ignore Dr. Alexander´s comments. As I testified before Congress, I am fully committed to maintaining the independence of the MMWR, and I stand by that statement.'
The CDC director, a political appointee, has also been the target of blistering criticism from Trump, who once called Redfield 'confused' for accurately saying a coronavirus vaccine might not be widely available until next year.
Kent told congressional investigators she was fully aware that Alexander's email was the type of communication that would normally be kept by the agency, not deleted.
'I considered this to be very unusual,' she said, according to the partial transcript released by Clyburn.
Certain 'persons in the agency, like center directors and the director, their email, you know, cannot be deleted,' she said.
The committee's investigation continues.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., pictured, who released the partial transcript, said the testimony of Dr. Kent raises 'serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials´ response to the coronavirus crisis'
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