WASHINGTON — The whistle-blower who was ousted as the pinnacle of a federal medical analysis company charged on Thursday that high Trump administra
WASHINGTON — The whistle-blower who was ousted as the pinnacle of a federal medical analysis company charged on Thursday that high Trump administration officers didn’t heed his early warnings to refill on masks and different provides to fight the coronavirus, and that People died in consequence.
“Lives had been endangered, and I consider lives had been misplaced,” Dr. Rick Brilliant, who was removed in April as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told a House subcommittee, as he warned, “The window is closing to address this pandemic.”
After holding back for nearly a month, President Trump and his health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, hit back at Dr. Bright, elevating the confrontation. Mr. Trump dismissed Dr. Bright as a “disgruntled employee” while Mr. Azar insisted officials followed through on the scientist’s ideas.
“Everything he was complaining about was achieved,” Mr. Azar told reporters as he and Mr. Trump were preparing to board the presidential helicopter to leave for Allentown, Pa. “What he talked about was done. He said he talked about the need for respirators. We procured respirators at the president’s direction. He said we need a Manhattan Project on a vaccine. We had a Manhattan Project.”
“This is like someone who was in choir trying to say he was a soloist back then,” Mr. Azar continued, adding: “His allegations do not hold water. They do not hold water.”
The president joined in. “I don’t know him,” Mr. Trump said. “I never met him. I don’t want to meet him but I watched him, and he looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly, according to some people, didn’t do a very good job.”
Dr. Bright’s testimony was the first time a federal scientist — or any federal official — had gone before Congress and openly accused the administration of endangering American lives by bungling its coronavirus response. He said Americans would face “the darkest winter in modern history” if the administration did not move quickly, as people become “restless” to leave their homes.
That came two days after Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, contradicted Mr. Trump by warning of “needless suffering and death” if states reopened too quickly, amounting to a one-two punch for the administration.
Mr. Azar and Dr. Bright’s immediate supervisor at the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kadlec, declined invitations to testify, as did Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, whom Mr. Bright considered an ally in the White House. Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, who led the hearing, said later in an interview that she did not intend to subpoena them.
“I don’t want to go down any legal rabbit holes,” Ms. Eshoo said, adding that she found Dr. Bright’s testimony “quite chilling.”
In an 89-page complaint filed with the Office of Special Counsel this month, Dr. Bright said he was reassigned to a narrower job at the National Institutes of Health as retaliation for his objections to the widespread distribution of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, malaria drugs that Mr. Trump was promoting as a treatment for Covid-19. He accused top officials of “cronyism” in awarding contracts — a charge health and human services has strongly denied.
On Thursday, shortly before Dr. Bright took the witness stand, his lawyers disclosed that the Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating Dr. Bright’s complaint, had made a preliminary determination of a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” regarding the cronyism allegation and had asked Mr. Azar to investigate.
Last week, the special counsel found “reasonable grounds” that Dr. Bright had been retaliated against and requested that Mr. Azar reinstate him at the research agency for 45 days while the office investigated. Health and human services officials have not replied to either request, said Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Bright.
But Mr. Azar seemed to suggest that Dr. Bright was being derelict in his refusal, so far, to take his new assignment at the National Institutes of Health. Health and human services officials initially said he would lead a new “shark tank”-type effort to develop coronavirus therapeutics, but Mr. Azar said on Thursday that Dr. Bright was supposed to be helping with a crash effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine, called Operation Warp Speed.
“Oh, and by the way, whose job was it to actually lead the development of a vaccine? Dr. Bright’s,” a visibly angry Mr. Azar said. “So while we are launching Operation Warp Speed, he’s not showing up for work.”
Representative Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, echoed Mr. Azar. He hit Dr. Bright for taking a medical leave for hypertension as his complaint went public, then taking vacation time to rest, but having the strength to show for a hearing on Capitol Hill. The congressman noted that Dr. Bright’s job paid $285,000 a year.
“You’re too sick to come into work, but you’re well enough to come here?” Mr. Mullin said.
Dr. Bright told lawmakers he was testifying in his “personal capacity” and not as a government employee. He was calm and measured throughout, pushing back on Republicans who, at various points, also complained he had not shown up for his National Institutes of Health job and suggested he should have brought his concerns to an inspector general (he said he did) instead of putting them in a whistle-blower complaint.
Representative Susan W. Brooks, Republican of Indiana, reminded Dr. Bright that the Trump administration had engaged in pandemic planning, and that he was a part of it.
“I can say that those plans have been in place,” he replied evenly. “It is disappointing that they were not put on the table with a strong leader indicating these are our plans, everyone falls in line and follow through with this plan.”
Such tension marked the hearing, as did a flash of profanity when Dr. Bright described his email exchanges with Mike Bowen, the executive vice president of Prestige Ameritech, a Texas-based company that makes protective masks. Mr. Bowen, who has been warning for more than a decade that the United States was too dependent on masks from China, emailed Dr. Bright in January, warning of a shortage.
In quiet tones, Dr. Bright recounted the email: “We’re in deep shit. The world is, and we need to act.”
Mr. Bowen, who testified after Dr. Bright, confirmed the account and said the issue was not partisan. “It seemed like everybody who was beating up on Dr. Bright was a Republican and everybody who was defending him was a Democrat,” he said, adding: “I’m a Republican. I voted for President Trump.”
In addition to buying masks, Dr. Bright recommended that the federal government stock up on remdesivir, a drug that has since been shown to shorten hospital stays for Covid-19 and has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment.
Dr. Bright also told the panel that he asked the Pentagon for a plane to bring in nasal swabs, which were in short supply and needed for coronavirus testing, from Italy. After Dr. Kadlec “rebuffed” him, he said he called Mr. Navarro, who got permission from Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper within hours.
As for a coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Bright said, the prediction that it would take 12 to 18 months might be overly optimistic. “There’s no one company that can produce enough for our country or the world,” he said. “It’s going to be limited supplies.”
Democrats painted Dr. Bright as a prescient man of courage. “It all adds up to one inescapable conclusion: It didn’t have to be this way,” said Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland. “Things are upside down. In you we have someone who made the right call in the early days, who has been removed from your position, when so many people who made the wrong call still have their jobs.”
Republicans, though, tried to discredit Dr. Bright, suggesting his performance was lacking. Representative Richard Hudson, Republican of North Carolina, told Dr. Bright that Congress should examine “serious allegations that have been made against you,” without elaborating. He cited a Politico article that said his whistle-blower complaint left out context and that his colleagues gave him “mixed” reviews.
Dr. Bright said he finally appealed to the public after he tried to put limits on the distribution of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Representative Gus Bilirakis, Republican of Florida, told Dr. Bright he knew of a veteran who was “cured” by hydroxychloroquine. Representative Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, noted that Dr. Bright had shown initial enthusiasm for the drugs and pushed him on whether he “soured” on them because Mr. Trump was promoting them.
Dr. Bright said he was not opposed to testing the drugs but had safety concerns and wanted to wait for the results of clinical trials. He said he assented to the F.D.A.’s “emergency use authorization” for chloroquine, which is unapproved in the United States, because the F.D.A. limited its use to hospital patients under close medical supervision.
“It had nothing to do with politics, sir,” he responded to Mr. Carter. “I wanted to make sure that Americans were aware of the risks of this drug.”