Putin troll Michael Caputo and his allies at the Department of Health and Human services begin threatening and intimidating CDC officials to help Donald Trump. Caputo became the assistant secretary of HHS for public affairs just three weeks ago despite having no medical or scientific background.
The exact date that Caputo’s hijacking efforts begin is unclear, but we know that they start after a CDC report on May 8th “which reviewed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States and caused significant strife within the health department.”
Caputo’s efforts continue until at least mid-September.
According to Politico’s reporting, Caputo:
(1) demands the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports;
(2) attempts to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals;
(3) openly complains that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump’s optimistic messages about the outbreak;
(4) makes substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether;
(5) makes an effort to retroactively change agency reports that he says wrongly inflate the risks of Covid-19 and should make clear that Americans sickened by the virus may be infected because of their own behavior;
(6) tries to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors are prescribing hydroxychloroquine — the report is successfully delayed for at least a month;
(7) has aides like Paul Alexander berate CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to “hurt the President” in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials;
(8) pressures the CDC to modify its years-old publication process so his aides can personally review the entire report prior to publication;
(9) helps install the CDC’s interim chief of staff, his own spy within the organization;
(10) and uses his aides to attack CDC officials and government scientists like Anthony Fauci for being honest about the threat of coronavirus on children.
Sources
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/09/emails-show-hhs-muzzle-fauci-410861
Photo: CNN
