A virologist responsible for the White House’s response to the Covid pandemic under former President Donald Trump was reassigned to investigate suspected cases of “election fraud” last winter, according to emails obtained by the U.S. Congress.

Pathologist Steven Hatfill, who advised then White House commercial director Peter Navarro, has repeatedly complained that “election stuff” is trumpeting the plan to contain the coronavirus crisis.

“Now with elections so close, Covid takes a back seat, but disease is raising it up[s] ugly head again, “Dr Hatfill said in emails in October 2020. These emails were obtained by the select House subcommittee investigating the Trump administration’s coronavirus response and were consulted by The Washington Post.

The following emails have shown a shift in Dr Hatfill’s own priorities as his attention shifted to the former president’s electoral challenges.

In an email, he detailed his travel plans to Arizona following a close election in the state with 11 electoral votes.

In another email in the wake of Mr Biden’s election victory, Dr Hatfill said he had personally “moved on to the election fraud investigation in November”. Since the defeat of the November 2020 election, Mr. Trump and many of his supporters have alleged electoral fraud, but all of their legal challenges have failed.

A day before the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, when a colleague at George Washington University wrote to him asking why he wasn’t “fixing the virus,” the virologist said: “Because the election thing has become uncontrollable.I’m going where my team is going.

Dr Hatfill was among the first to sound the alarm bells about the pandemic and show his skepticism about the White House’s response to it.

In February 2020, he wrote to Mr. Navarro that “[i]In truth, we have no idea how many people are infected in the United States, “adding that the first big wave of infections would start in the United States” within the next 7 days “. These emails were posted earlier this month.

He had also expressed his concerns about the Covid-19 response of the Center for Disease Control, for the distribution of “ineffective test kits for the diagnosis of the coronavirus”, which he said limited the ability to screen individuals for the disease. ‘infection.

In March 2020, Dr Hatfill warned of the shortage of medical ventilators, as he urged the White House to “secure an adequate supply” as quickly as possible.

In September 2020, dissatisfied with Covid-19’s response, Dr Hatfill wrote to then-team leader Mark Meadows that the president had been “grossly ill-advised by the Covid task force on the appropriate response to the pandemic “.

Defending his subsequent involvement in the Trump campaign, Dr Hatfill said he was galvanized by his own discontent with the administration’s response to the pandemic.

“From my perspective as a doctor, I was and continue to be frustrated with public health being treated like political football,” he said. The Washington Post.

“Moreover, I was disgusted by the destruction of the national pandemic plan at the hands of small, conflicting bureaucrats; a plan focused on early treatment and community awareness, rather than experimental vaccines and panic. “