President Joe Biden’s nominee for the top government scientist spot gained bipartisan support Thursday despite senators grilling him regarding allegations of sexism and his past interactions with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Eric Lander has been nominated to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which he is almost certain to be confirmed for in the Senate.
Biden raised the role to a Cabinet-level position for the first time in history, raising the stakes of Lander’s confirmation.
Lander, who is a world-class geneticist and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, faced questions about his 2012 meetings with Epstein, who faced charges of sex trafficking in 2019 before his death in jail.
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“Epstein was an abhorrent individual, and my heart goes out to his victims. I chose to have no association whatsoever with him,” Lander said when asked by Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi about his meetings with Epstein.
“The sum total of my interactions is that I met him briefly at two events over a span of three weeks in 2012. I did not know about his sordid history before that point. As soon as I learned about it, I had nothing to do with him thereafter,” Lander added.
Despite his Epstein interactions, Republicans recognized Lander’s background and expertise as an academic.
“There’s no doubt he has lead a long and notable career as a bright and dedicated research scientist,” Wicker said before he started his line of questioning.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said twice that he looked forward to showing Lander around his state and its research facilities as soon as possible. He also said he “wanted to work with” Lander on legislation that would translate learnings from the coronavirus vaccination efforts to other areas of science and health innovation.
Lander was also accused of treating two Nobel Prize-winning female scientists, who played a key role in the development of breakthrough gene-editing technology, unfairly by not giving them enough credit.
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said she appreciated Lander’s “candor” regarding the lack of credit he gave to the female scientists he had worked with, and the senator accepted his apology.
Nevertheless, senators from both parties appeared to like his answers on how to build tech research and development initiatives, strengthen cybersecurity, and ensure the United States remains competitive with China.
Multiple Republican senators said they had enjoyed their private meetings with Lander before his confirmation hearing and suggested they had much agreement with him on science and technological innovation.
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He is expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks to the White House role.
