President Trump attacked the former top vaccine official who filed a whistleblower complaint against the administration hours before the official’s scheduled testimony before a House subcommittee.
Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has alleged that he was demoted for pushing for more evidence regarding hydroxychloroquine, the drug touted by Trump as a possible treatment for the coronavirus. He is expected to testify that the United States could face “unprecedented illness and fatalities” from COVID-19 without additional preparation when he appears before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health later Thursday.
“I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him,” the president tweeted Thursday morning, “but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!”
I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him, but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2020
Bright, who filed the whistleblower complaint with the Office of Special Counsel earlier this month, is expected to testify that the nation’s “window of opportunity” to curb the coronavirus “is closing” and that “2020 will be (the) darkest winter in modern history” if the country does not implement important decisions.
Last month, Bright said he was removed from his job as director of BARDA, the agency tasked with finding a coronavirus vaccine, because of his “insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit.” He has alleged that the Trump administration also disregarded his early warnings about the growing spread of the coronavirus.
