The House Democrats launched a full investigation into Emergent after the New York Times documented months of problems at the plant, including a failure to properly disinfect equipment and protect it from viral and bacterial contamination. The committee released a series of confidential audits previously reported by The Times that identified a number of violations of manufacturing standards, as well as a June 2020 report from a leading federal manufacturing expert stating that Emergent did not have had trained staff and adequate quality control systems.
Lawmakers are looking to see if corporate officials used ties with the Trump administration to win a $ 628 million federal contract and whether Emergent executives accepted the award despite known shortcomings. You’ll also see Mr. Kramer’s sale of $ 10 million worth of Emergent stock this year and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash awards made by Emergent’s board of directors to its top executives.
New York Democrat Representative Carolyn Maloney complained that aspiring officials “appeared to have wasted tax dollars while filling their own pockets”. Mr Krishnamoorthi sharply asked Mr Kramer if he would consider handing over his $ 1.2 million bonus to American taxpayers from 2020 onwards.
“Congressman, I will not make that commitment,” replied Mr. Kramer evenly.
“I didn’t think so,” replied Krishnamoorthi-san.
Regarding his stock deals, Mr. Kramer said they were “done according to a plan approved by the company” and in “a quiet time that was also approved by the company”. He added, “My participation has been completely removed from these stores.”
At the beginning of the hearing, Mr. Kramer testified that possible contamination of the Johnson & Johnson cans “has been identified by our quality control procedures, as well as by controls and deliberations. However, when questioned, he later admitted that it was picked up from a Johnson & Johnson laboratory in the Netherlands.
While the Democrats were pushing Mr Kramer for information about how vaccines are made, the Republicans tried to defend the company and tried to change the subject by talking about the unproven theory that the coronavirus emerged from a laboratory in China, the “Lies of the Communist Party of China” and masked mandates as well as the demand of the Biden government for a renunciation of an international agreement on intellectual property, which is strongly rejected by the pharmaceutical industry.
“You are a reputable company that did Yeoman’s job protecting this land on biological defense!” Tennessee Republican Representative Mark Green once exclaimed, adding, “So you gave your people a bonus for their incredible work.”
