Abbe Lowell Is Busy!
Monarez had refused to go along with the anti-vaccine madness of Trump’s “health czar,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK). Trump had named Monarez as CDC director just a month ago. At her Senate confirmation hearing, Monarez said that “vaccines save lives” and that their use should continue to be supported. If Trump and RFK thought they could just strong-arm Monarez to go along with their anti-vaccine crusade, they were proven wrong.
Monarez had much to say:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leadership was in stunning disarray Wednesday evening after the Trump administration fired the agency’s director hours after she refused to resign under pressure.
The director, Susan Monarez, said she was resisting being ousted by the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for political reasons after about a month in office.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” said her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell.
Abbe Lowell is best known recently for his role as lead counsel for Hunter Biden in two criminal cases on federal gun and tax evasion charges. Hunter was convicted of the gun charges and pleaded guilty to the tax changes; only a last-minute pardon from Joe kept him out of prison. Since then, he's founded hs own law firm that specializes in representing clients who've gotten themselves crosswise with Trump; he's taken on Letitia James and Lisa Cook, and he's now also representing Susan Monarez. Her firing
sparked a near-immediate leadership exodus from the CDC, which is charged with safekeeping the public health of the more than 300 million people in the United States.
At least four top officials announced their resignations, including Dr. Debra Houry, the chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr. Jen Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology.
On one hand, this seems to be a direct outcome of the whole COVID debacle. The day Director Monarez was fired, Secretary Kennedy posted this on X:The core objection appears to be this:I promised 4 things:
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) August 27, 2025
1. to end covid vaccine mandates.
2. to keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable.
3. to demand placebo-controlled trials from companies.
4. to end the emergency.
In a series of FDA actions today we accomplished…
The federal government has removed COVID-19 vaccines from the list of shots recommended for healthy pregnant women and children, federal health officials announced Tuesday [May 27}.
"I couldn't be more pleased to announce that as of today the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a video posted on X. "We're now one step closer to realizing President Trump's promise to make America healthy again."
The decision will make it much harder for parents to get their children vaccinated and for pregnant people to get the shots because insurance companies will likely no longer pay for them.
"Last year the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children," Kennedy said.
So far, Trump appears to be backing up Kennedy:
President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to raise fresh questions about the Covid-19 vaccines that were first developed on his watch, saying his top public health agency is being “ripped apart” by debate over the success of the shots.
. . . The post represented Trump’s first public comments about the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the agency’s former director, Dr. Susan Monarez, was abruptly fired on Wednesday, less than a month into her tenure amid a dispute over vaccine policy.
. . . Trump’s comments came after the US Food and Drug Administration announced that it would narrow its approval for the next Covid vaccine, a move that prompted criticism from public health experts and widespread confusion over who will be eligible to receive the shot.
On Monday, commissioner Marty Makary defended the decision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, arguing that drug makers haven’t justified the need for people who are under 65 or who don’t have certain health conditions to get the vaccine.
“No one knows how many shots a healthy person should get in his natural life,” Makary wrote. “The FDA’s new framework preserves vaccines for those who might most plausibly benefit, while generating evidence for most Americans, who are voting with their feet (or their upper arms) against an eternal annual booster campaign.”
The decisions to limit approval for future COVID boosters reflects a belated recognition that the CDC's handling of COVID and its endorsement of lockdowns seriously damaged its credibility and indeed, the credibility of vaccines overall. Just why, aftrer all, did Biden see the need to give Dr Fauci a blanket pardon with much of his own family?
In the final minutes of his presidency, Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned several family members, including his brothers James and Frank Biden, and sister Valerie Biden Owens.
Biden said the pardons were intended to shield his family from politically motivated attacks and should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment of any wrongdoing.
The eleventh-hour move follows another set of pardons issued to Covid response chief Anthony Fauci and members of the House 6 January riot investigation to prevent what he called "unjustified... politically motivated prosecutions".
There's a great deal we have yet to learn.