A key Senate committee chairman is rebuffing calls to seek testimony from a top public health official who says he was demoted and reassigned after raising alarms about an unverified coronavirus treatment touted by President Donald Trump.
Dr. Rick Bright, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed a formal whistleblower complaint this week alleging that officials retaliated against him for voicing concerns about hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug hailed as a coronavirus treatment by Trump and his allies.
Asked by reporters whether Bright should appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) demurred.
“That’s a different issue,” he said of Bright’s whistleblower complaint. “We’re involved in testing, treatment and vaccines.”
Democrats are eager to bring Bright to Capitol Hill; he is scheduled to testify before a House subcommittee on May 14, his lawyer said.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said he would be comfortable if Bright testified before the Senate, but said it was up to Alexander to make the final call.
“He has a really important position in the administration, and that’s under a cloud,” Thune told reporters. “Where a complaint like that goes probably depends on the seriousness of it, and that’s something that I think oversight committees up here have every right to examine.”
Trump on Wednesday said he knows “nothing” about Bright, but said he was “disgruntled.”
“And I don’t think disgruntled people should be working for a certain administration,” Trump said.
Bright says he sounded the alarm about the coronavirus earlier this year as it was spreading rapidly throughout China, but was met with “indifference which then developed into hostility” from officials across the Trump administration.
Trump has since backed off his promotion of hydroxychloroquine as several of his top health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, expressed skepticism about the drug, citing lack of appropriate testing and clinical trials. The drug has also been linked to serious heart problems.
Alexander’s committee will hear from Fauci in a public hearing next week. House Democrats have said the White House is blocking Fauci from appearing before their chamber. The administration said it was not given specific details about the focus of the hearing, though Trump later made clear he objected because “the House is a bunch of Trump haters.”