Ex-Trump official has fiery response to Democrat committee accusing Trump of 'failure' in pandemic

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Former Trump official Dr. Brett Giroir responded Wednesday with a fiery letter to accusations from a House subcommittee that the Trump administration's response to COVID-19 was one of "neglect" and "failure." 

The House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis called on Giroir and Dr. Robert Kadlec to testify before the committee regarding what it said were failures in their pandemic response Monday. Giroir and Kadlec both served as assistant secretaries in the Department of Health and Human Services under former President Trump.

"Trump Administration officials neglected early warnings, failed to adequately prepare for or develop a coordinated national plan to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference in the nation’s pandemic response," the Democrat-controlled committee alleged. "These failures undermined the nation’s ability to respond effectively to the pandemic."

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Assistant HHS Secretary for Health Brett Giroir testifies during a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to examine COVID-19 Sept. 23, 2020.  (Graeme Jennings/POOL/AFP via Getty Images))

The committee went on to accuse Giroir of intentionally weakening testing guidance in an effort to artificially reduce case numbers.

Giroir states in his letter, sent Thursday, that he is prepared to interview with the committee, arguing its accusations are baseless.

"The Democrat-controlled subcommittee is again engaging in partisan accusations with no (basis) and belittling everyone they can in the Trump Administration," Giroir told Fox News Digital in an email.

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"If America’s COVID deaths were due to a failed response under the Trump Administration, why have 560,000 Americans died during the Biden Administration, far more than died under the Trump Administration?" Giroir wrote in the letter. "And how could so many deaths occur under the Biden Administration when it was provided with 900 million doses of safe and effective vaccines and 70,000 vaccine administration sites the day President Biden took office?

"From the moment I was selected to coordinate testing, I endeavored to increase testing across the nation – and that effort was supported by both the Administration in general and the President in particular," the letter adds.

The subcommittee has called on a number of former Trump officials to testify. It also subpoenaed former trade adviser Peter Navarro in November.

Former Trump adviser Dr. Scott Atlas also gave a voluntary interview to the committee in January. Atlas argued that the administration's emphasis on masking and lockdowns were a failure, but he said those policies spring from Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Atlas said he and others pushed for more targeted protections for vulnerable Americans, but their recommendations were overruled.

"That was not implemented and, instead, the Birx and Fauci lockdowns were implemented," Atlas said. "And those policies literally killed people and destroyed families and have a massive psychological, destructive harm on the younger generation."