![]() Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who chairs the coronavirus subcommittee, said in a statement that the documents “show a pernicious pattern of political interference by Administration officials.” That’s certainly not my approach,” Fauci said in September. “We certainly are not wanting to wait back and just let people get infected so that you can develop herd immunity. Public health experts have decried calls to deliberately infect younger, healthier Americans with Covid-19, saying that it would unnecessarily put millions of people at risk of long-term complications and even death. Caputo, who took medical leave the same day that Alexander left the department, has referred previous inquiries to HHS. Paul Alexander previously served as a temporary Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and is no longer employed at the Department,” the spokesperson said.Īlexander did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, an HHS spokesperson said that Alexander’s demands for herd immunity “absolutely did not” shape department strategy. 16, HHS announced that Alexander would be leaving the department, just days after POLITICO first reported on his efforts to shape the CDC’s famed Morbidity and Mortality and Weekly Reports and pressure government scientist Anthony Fauci from speaking about the risks of Covid-19 to children. The emails represent an unusual window on the internal deliberations of the Trump administration, and the tensions between political appointees like Alexander - a part-time professor at a Canadian university - and staff members in health agencies. “We always knew as you relax and open up, cases will rise.” “There is a rise in cases due to testing and also simultaneously due to the relaxing of restrictions, less social distancing,” Alexander wrote in a July 24 email. In his emails, Alexander also spent months attacking government scientists and pushing to shape official statements to be more favorable to President Donald Trump.įor instance, Alexander acknowledges in a May 30 email that a draft statement from the CDC about how Covid-19 was disproportionately affecting minority populations was “very accurate,” but he warned HHS and CDC communications officials that “in this election cycle that is the kind of statement coming from CDC that the media and Democrat antagonists will use against the president.” The problems were “due to decades of democrat neglect,” Alexander alleged.Īlexander also appeared to acknowledge that the White House’s own push to let states wind down their Covid-19 restrictions was leading to a spike in cases. government with regard to coronavirus,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a hearing before the House coronavirus subcommittee on Oct. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity - a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy - was under consideration or shaped the White House’s approach to the pandemic. Denying any contact with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, Caputo did live in Moscow during the 1990s, served as an adviser to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and did pro-Putin public relations work for the Russian conglomerate Gazprom Media. Caputo resigned from being a Trump campaign communications advisor after appearing to celebrate the firing of former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Capitol Visitors Center Jin Washington, DC. WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 14: Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee during a closed-door session at the U.S.
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