US settles with Trump admin whistleblower who exposed botched COVID response

Enlarge / Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, steps out of the hearing room before testifying about the government response to the novel coronavirus pandemic to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill May 14, 2020, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

The US government has reached a financial settlement with whistleblower Rick Bright, a former health official who detailed the Trump administration's botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bright is an immunology expert who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) until he says he was forced out of his position in April 2020. We wrote a detailed summary of the whistleblower complaint he filed shortly after.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced its settlement with Bright today. "The agency would like to thank Dr. Bright for his dedicated public service and for the contributions he made to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic while he served as BARDA Director. We wish him well in his new endeavors," the HHS statement said.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments