(CNN) — A former Trump administration appointee privately boasted last year about influencing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s scientific reports about Covid-19 and attacked the agency’s guidance while advocating for a herd immunity strategy, according to a House select committee investigating the federal government’s Covid-19 response.
Last year, former Health and Human Services senior adviser Paul Alexander wrote an email describing two examples of the CDC adjusting its writing based on his input, including cutting out a reference to potential virus outbreaks in schools, according to new documents obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“Small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!” Alexander wrote in a September 9, 2020, email.
In a letter dated Friday to Alexander, the select committee chair Rep. James Clyburn wrote that “this investigation has also revealed that you played a role in the Trump Administration’s efforts to suppress scientific information you felt could be “use[d] against the president” and advocated for policies that would allow the virus to spread widely among many Americans, asserting “we want them infected.”
Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, also requested that Alexander conduct a transcribed interview with the subcommittee on April 30.
CNN has reached out to Alexander for comment.
The-CNN-Wire
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