EXCLUSIVE — A former COVID-19 senior adviser in the Biden administration was forced to defy a congressional subpoena this week after the White House instructed him not to comply with it because of concerns with the rules surrounding his appearance.
Andrew Slavitt, a longtime health official who worked on President Joe Biden’s coronavirus response team, was scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 31. Letters obtained by the Washington Examiner reveal the White House instructed Slavitt not to appear.
“To protect the constitutional separation of powers and the institutional interests of the White House, I write to inform you that the White House does not authorize Mr. Slavitt to appear at the Committee’s scheduled deposition,” White House counsel Richard Sauber wrote to Slavitt’s attorney one day before the scheduled deposition.
Sauber communicated the same message to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in a separate letter, and he indicated that the administration also objected to the committee’s forthcoming deposition with Robert Flaherty, Biden’s former director of digital strategy.
The committee is seeking to speak with Slavitt and Flaherty about the well-documented pressure they put on social media companies to censor content, particularly about COVID-19, beginning in 2021.
Flaherty, who now works for the Biden presidential campaign, was cited dozens of times in a sweeping memorandum from a federal judge, who found the former official had a key role in coercing Meta, X, and YouTube to censor content.
Flaherty would routinely demand the companies report to him on their practices for removing content, such as posts that showed “vaccine hesitancy” and “borderline content.”
In one instance, Flaherty became angry with Meta in July 2021, indicating he was displeased with the platform’s efforts to censor a group that became known as the “disinformation dozen,” which included Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Are you guys f***ing serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today,” Flaherty wrote to Meta.
Slavitt, in another instance, wrote an ominous email to the platform saying, “Internally, we have been considering our options on what to do about [the lack of censorship].”
The Judiciary Committee could sue the pair of former officials or attempt to hold them in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas.
“Everything is on the table as to what comes next,” a committee spokesperson said.
The White House pointed to Sauber’s correspondence when asked for comment.
Sauber cited in his letter to Slavitt’s attorney the Department of Justice’s long-held stance that Congress is obligated to allow government counsel to be present at certain depositions, a position that the Judiciary Committee disputes.
“Because of the constitutional defects with the Committee’s subpoena and consistent with its past advice, [the DOJ] has advised me of its position that Mr. Slavitt cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress,” Sauber wrote.
The committee has run into similar resistance from the Biden administration before regarding depositions and transcribed interviews. The committee has maintained throughout this Congress that it allows the option for witnesses to appear with personal counsel but not government counsel unless the setting is a transcribed interview and the witness does not have personal counsel.
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Slavitt’s attorney wrote to Jordan on the day of the scheduled deposition, saying his client had flown to Washington, D.C., from California to meet with the committee.
“My client has no interest in turning around and heading back to California without speaking to the Committee. However, given that Mr. Slavitt now has received a letter from the White House instructing him not to appear, he unfortunately cannot do so,” the attorney wrote to Jordan.