A House panel investigating the pandemic response subpoenaed top health officials, including the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services, as part of an inquiry into whether the White House intervened with scientific findings from public health authorities about the coronavirus crisis, The Independent reported Tuesday.
The oversight committee has ordered U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar and CDC chief Robert Redfield to produce related documents by Dec. 30, U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn who chairs the coronavirus sub-panel, said in a statement.
Clyburn said his subcommittee has found strong proof of a political pressure campaign to "bully" key personnel at the CDC in what may have been an attempt to destabilize the U.S. pandemic response in "a misguided effort to attain herd immunity."
Herd immunity is a theory that society can be best protected from the virus by allowing younger people to get infected and develop natural immunity until vaccines become available.
Clyburn said earlier this month that a CDC official, Dr. Charlotte Kent, alleged to committee probers that Redfield ordered the removal of an email that showed an appointee of the Trump administration attempting to intervene with a health document in the wake of the pandemic, Axios reports.
The congressional body has been seeking transcriptions of interviews with seven prominent officials from the CDC and HHS including several other papers since September but claims the health agencies were stonewalling them.
Representatives for the Health department and Human Services defended their actions during the global health crisis and said they had already released other related documents to the sub-panel.
Clyburn said that he decided on ordering the subpoenas in part because the investigative body gathered evidence that suggests there were clear intentions to sabotage the records. A House mandate for materials increases the legal stakes for anyone who tries to damage or hide materials.
A representative for HHS dismissed the claims and said the agency had complied with the inquiry, submitting over a million documents for the panel.
