bye! —
Directly contradicting your agency and calling your boss names is a bad look.
Kate Cox
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Enlarge / Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, wears a Washington Nationals protective mask after a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.
A public affairs officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is out of a day job after a report found he was moonlighting pseudonymously as an editor for a conservative website, where he regularly trashed his agency and its director, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The RedState managing editor known as “streiff” is actually William Crews, The Daily Beast reported yesterday. Crews was, until this week, a public affairs specialist at NIAID, which is one of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health.
As streiff, Crews “derided his own colleagues as part of a left-wing anti-Trump conspiracy and vehemently criticized the man who leads his agency,” according to The Daily Beast. Additionally, he described his boss as “attention-grubbing and media-whoring Anthony Fauci” and “a mask nazi.”
Crews also described the entire pandemic as a “massive fraud,” writing:
I think we’re at the point where it is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by ‘experts’ who were determined to fundamentally change the way the country lives and is organized and governed.
The Daily Beast diplomatically calls these pseudonymous posts “a remarkable break” from NIAID’s public position—a position that Crews, as a public affairs official, would spend his working hours promoting.
Following The Daily Beast’s reporting, NIAID told media, “Mr. Crews has informed us of his intention to retire,” adding only that it would not comment further on “a personnel matter.”
Murky messages
Unfortunately, Crews is not the administration’s only health communications official who has been simultaneously sabotaging federal efforts at public health messaging.
Michael Caputo, who at the time was the assistant secretary of public affairs for the Department of Health and Human Services, earlier this month released a podcast calling the closure of schools and other efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic “nonsense.” He also posted a live video to Facebook in which he claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention harbors a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Donald Trump, up to and including committing “sedition.” He went on to claim, with absolutely no evidence, that left-wing “hit squads” are preparing for armed insurrection after the election.
Caputo, who is by background a political operative rather than a health expert, announced he would take a leave of absence for 60 days after his remarks in the video and podcast were widely reported. His science adviser, Paul Alexander, also left the agency after emails obtained by Politico showed he had repeatedly tried to prevent Fauci from saying children can spread COVID-19 or advocating they wear masks, among other scientifically false claims.