Lawyers Want Whistleblower Reinstated

WASHINGTON (AP) – Rick Bright headed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and had received a job performance review of outstanding before he was summarily transferred last month. Now lawyers for the government whistleblower say federal investigators found “reasonable grounds that he had been retaliated against. Bright had opposed widespread use of an unproven drug that President Donald Trump touted as a remedy for the coronavirus. The agency he was transferred from is a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Bright’s lawyers said Friday that investigators with the Office of Special Counsel “made a threshold determination that HHS violated the Whistleblower Protection Act by removing Dr. Bright.”