Show an ad over header. AMP  

Democrats to probe Trump appointees who allegedly interfered with CDC reports

14 September 2020
 Dan Ackermann

House Democrats are launching an investigation into how Trump's political appointees pressured officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "to block the publication of accurate scientific reports" on COVID-19, according to a letter first obtained by Politico.

Details: Citing previous reporting that Trump aides "openly complained" that the CDC's reports would undermine the president's positive message, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the other Democratic members of the subcommittee on the coronavirus wrote to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC director Robert Redfield to request "transcribed interviews and documents."

What they're saying: "With nearly 200,000 Americans killed and hundreds more dying each day from the coronavirus pandemic, the public needs and deserves truthful scientific information so they can keep themselves and their families healthy," Clyburn and the other Democrats wrote.

  • "Yet in discussing the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020, President Trump admitted, 'I wanted to always play it down' and, 'I still like playing it down.' We are gravely concerned by reports showing that the President’s political appointees at HHS have sought to help him downplay the risks of the coronavirus crisis by attempting to alter, delay, and block critical scientific reports from CDC."

Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official and now the main spokesperson at HHS has defended the aides' actions, telling Politico that "[b]uried in this good [CDC] work are sometimes stories which seem to purposefully mislead and undermine the President’s Covid response with what some scientists label as poor scholarship — and others call politics disguised in science."

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.