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She’s turned to Michael Bromwich, senior counsel on the white shoe Steptoe legislation agency, for assist.
“It’s plain that the pandemic resulted in tragic and persevering with penalties for youngsters,” Bromwich wrote on the union’s behalf Wednesday to subcommittee chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and rating member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.).
“We make no progress in the direction of addressing these very actual issues by partaking in the kind of scapegoating constructed on false allegations that seem like the idea for this Subcommittee’s ‘investigation,’” Bromwich wrote in his letter to lawmakers, which was obtained by POLITICO.
Bromwich is extensively identified in Washington for his work representing former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe in the course of the Trump-Russia investigation and Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who alleged she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court docket Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
A former Justice Division inspector normal, Bromwich has garnered a popularity as a pugnacious defender. His message to congressional Republicans on Wednesday suggests he’ll deploy the same technique.
Earlier this month, Wenstrup requested Weingarten to testify at an April 26 listening to on the penalties of Covid-19’s college closures.
That request adopted a March 28 letter from Wenstrup to Weingarten, which knowledgeable the academics’ union chief that the choose committee was investigating “potential political interference” with Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention steering on reopening colleges issued in February 2021.
Wenstrup’s March 28 letter alleged the union was granted “unusual” entry to edit the steering earlier than its launch, citing media studies on the time, which it mentioned in the end resulted within the CDC advising that colleges ought to stay closed in a lot of the nation.
Bromwich countered that the union shared its views on the deliberate steering in late January 2021 throughout a convention name between Weingarten, senior union employees, CDC officers and President Joe Biden’s workplace.
AFT officers then adopted up in February 2021 to counsel language associated to lodging for high-risk educators and employees, and in addition proposed that the CDC embrace language that mentioned its steering might should be up to date in gentle of latest virus variants.
As well as, the union additionally proposed a “set off” threshold that might decide when colleges ought to be closed based mostly on constructive check circumstances. However the CDC rejected that suggestion, in accordance with Bromwich.
“The declare that the AFT’s agenda was ‘retaining colleges closed,’ and that it shifted CDC’s steering to match that agenda, is completely false,” Bromwich wrote to lawmakers on Wednesday.
“The truth is, the AFT’s position was extraordinarily restricted,” he wrote. “It proposed modifications that amounted to some sentences in a 38-page doc. The necessity to make clear these factors was apparent and may have been uncontroversial.”
Wenstrup has requested Weingarten to produce paperwork, communications and a listing of conferences between the AFT and the CDC, division of Well being and Human Companies and the Govt Workplace of the President concerning the steering, amongst different gadgets.
Wenstrup additionally issued related requests to greater than a dozen different organizations — together with the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation, AASA, The Faculty Superintendents Affiliation; the Nationwide Affiliation of Secondary Faculty Principals the Nationwide Affiliation of Elementary Faculty Principals and Nationwide Faculty Boards Affiliation.
Weingarten “welcomes the chance to testify and cooperate with the committee’s work,” an AFT spokesperson mentioned on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Wenstrup didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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