The White House planted 2 political operatives in the CDC to keep tabs on director Robert Redfield and his scientists, report says
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- The White House positioned two political operatives at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June, the Associated Press reported.
- The first, Nina Witkofsky was appointed as senior advisor to CDC Director Robert Redfield and promoted to acting chief of staff within weeks. The second, Chester Moeller, is her deputy.
- A White House official told the AP the pair were placed there to control the agency's messaging because leaks were "upsetting the apple cart."
- Their remit included keeping watch on Redfield and the agency's scientists, CDC officials told the AP.
- The news is the latest in a series of moves that show how the White House has sought to control the CDC, and prevent it from influencing the government's reaction to the pandemic.
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The White House planted two political officials with no public health experience at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep tabs on the agency and its scientists, according to The Associated Press.
Nina Witkofsky was appointed as senior advisor to CDC Director Robert Redfield at the agency's Atlanta headquarters in June and within weeks had been promoted to CDC acting chief of staff.
The second political arrival, Chester "Trey" Moeller, is Witkofsky's deputy.
Witkofsky, the AP said, played a small role in Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign. Her CDC profile also says she has worked in governmental affairs for 20 years, including at the State Department.
A White House official told the AP that the pair were placed at the CDC to control its messaging because leaks were "upsetting the apple cart."
Their remit included keeping watch on Redfield and the agency's scientists, CDC officials told the AP.
CDC staff had little warning that the pair were joining, an agency source told the AP, adding that no one knew their job titles and that they didn't have assigned offices. "They just showed up on a Monday," the official said.
The CDC has had a fractious relationship with the White House throughout the pandemic, and has itself made several missteps that damaged its credibility.
The CDC first drew the wrath of the White House on February 21 when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a top CDC official, warned publicly that the outbreak was getting worse.
At the time the White House was trying to play down the threat, and Trump reportedly called Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar and said he wanted Messonnier to be sacked.
Since that time the CDC and White House have clashed several times and a number of damning reports have detailed how the White House has ignored CDC scientific advice.
- The CDC was criticized in January for sending teams to airports to scan arriving passengers for symptoms, when they knew that many asymptomatic cases would slip through.
- The agency again came under fire in February after its first attempt to develop a test for COVID-19 went badly wrong. Batches of tests were sent out to public-health labs, but they didn't work. According to ProPublica, it took three weeks to solve the issue.
- In April, the White House ignored a 63-page CDC report on how the US should end its lockdown. The White House coronavirus task force called the plan "overly specific."
- As part of the report, the CDC had chosen not to include edits made by the White House task force to a section on the reopening of religious buildings made by the White House task force. ProPublica reported that the move prompted a "furious call" from Vice President Mike Pence's office, in which the CDC was told that the White House's edits were mandatory and that its omission amounted to insubordination.
- In July, after the CDC published its guidance for reopening schools, Trump tweeted: "I disagree with CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools."
- The CDC was also criticized on August 24 after it published a guidance discouraging people from getting COVID-19 tests. The New York Times later reported that that it was instead drafted and published by Trump officials despite objections from CDC scientists.
- In September, the White House reportedly blocked the CDC from imposing an order that would require all passengers to wear masks on public transport.
- On September 25, Politico reported that the Trump administration had taken $300 million in CDC funding and used the money to make a series of advertisements to "defeat despair" around COVID-19.
- On September 29, Pence reportedly stopped the CDC from extending a ban on cruise-ship journeys to 2021.
"It's mind-boggling in the totality of ambition to so deeply undermine what's so vitally important to the public," a CDC scientist told ProPublica of the Trump administration's approach to the agency during the pandemic.
The scientist also said the administration was "appropriating a public enterprise and making it into an agent of propaganda for a political regime."
On September 23, Dr. William Foege, a former CDC director, wrote to Redfield to tell him that the agency's reputation had gone "from gold to tarnished brass" and that he should call out the White House for its skulduggery.
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