Further Caputo update

Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official who took over as top spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, will take a 60-day leave of absence, HHS announced Wednesday.

The move comes after Caputo, who led the agency’s communications on the coronavirus pandemic, reportedly said in a now-deleted video posted Sunday on his personal Facebook page that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were engaged in “sedition” against President Donald Trump.

  CNBC

I hope 60 days is enough.*

HHS also announced that Paul Alexander, an advisor to Caputo who was working for the agency on a temporary basis, “will be leaving the department.”

Alexander is the one who demanded everything the CDC put out go through him.

Politico reported last week that Alexander had also been trying to control what Fauci, a White House coronavirus advisor, said in media appearances. When asked about the report last week, Fauci said any attempt to control what he says is a “fool’s errand.”

[...]

In a statement obtained by CNBC, Caputo said he will use the leave of absence “to pursue necessary screenings for a lymphatic issue discovered last week.” Caputo added that he has been losing weight for months and had delayed seeing his doctor. He also said “violent threats leveled at me and my family back in Buffalo” have contributed to his stress levels. In the statement, he thanked Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for conferring with Caputo’s personal physician.

“But every American battling COVID — in every city in every state across the nation — has been under enormous pressure. I am just one of them,” he said. “Our family is blessed. We urge all Americans to see their family doctor for the healthcare they need but have missed for months during this crisis. Do it today.”

Especially if you're going to need a medical excuse for some legal trouble you may have gotten yourself into. In other words, if you work in the Trump administration.

The internal shake-up comes after Democratic lawmakers launched an investigation earlier this week into alleged political interference at the CDC by Trump appointees.

[...]

Also earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for [HHS chief Alex] Azar to resign, citing “chaos and mismanagement in his own agency.”

Which won't happen.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE 9/16:  Caputo has been diagnosed with cancer.  What of the brain, you ask?

"After surgery last week at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, doctors diagnosed Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Caputo with squamous cell carcinoma, a metastatic head and neck cancer which originated in his throat," according to a statement from David DiPietro, a New York State assemblymember who is serving as Caputo's spokesperson. "He is now home in Western New York, resting in the loving arms of his family, under the watchful eye of Jesus Christ."

  Politico

*UPDATE 10/25: Apparently not.