GOP senators request subpoenas for CDC and HHS for documents regarding school reopening coordination

A group of GOP Senators led by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson sent a letter on Thursday to Democrat Sen. Gary Peters, the chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requesting that he initiate issuing subpoenas requesting information regarding school reopening guidance and coordination, plus unredacted copies of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.

The letter comes after the group sent two previous letters to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health requesting the information.

The first letter was dated May 19, 2021, in which Sens. Rand Paul, James Lankford, and Josh Hawley requested all documents related to coordination between the CDC, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association regarding the drafting of federal school reopening guidance.

The senators alleged that the documents provided to them were only "a small subset of records that it had already made public through the Freedom of Information Act," stating that “these records contained the exact same FOIA markings as the public documents."

In the letter dated June 11, 2021, the group of senators requested that the HHS and NIH produce unredacted copies of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails. They claimed that "once again, HHS refused to be transparent and, on July 27, 2021, sent us what they claimed was the same heavily redacted documents it already released through the FOIA process."

"These agencies' apparent contempt for legitimate congressional oversight and the law is unacceptable. This administration cannot be allowed to ignore congressional oversight nor determine what information is fit for Congress’ review," the group said in their letter. "We call on you to … initiate proceedings to serve subpoenas to HHS, CDC, and NIH to compel compliance with our lawful demands."