Trump administration shakes up HHS personnel office after tumultuous hires

Source: Politico | September 21, 2020 | Dan Diamond

The move leaves Health Secretary Alex Azar with more control over his department, which has been rocked by personnel scandals in recent weeks.

The Trump administration on Monday removed the top two liaisons between the White House and the health department, leaving HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s chief of staff as the de facto personnel chief, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

White House Liaison Emily Newman and her deputy Catherine Granito will be shifting full-time to the Voice of America’s parent organization, the United States Agency for Global Media, HHS chief of staff Brian Harrison told senior staff on Monday.

Newman already has spent more than three months detailed to the global media agency as its chief of staff, which meant that Granito — an undergraduate at the University of Michigan as recently as this spring — had been in charge of the health department’s personnel while playing a role in shaping policies in the middle of a pandemic.

The decision to reassign Newman and Granito was jointly made by the White House and the health department, said two individuals familiar with the situation. The White House liaison’s office at HHS traditionally serves as a go-between for personnel decisions, although Azar’s team has received little forewarning on many recent personnel moves, the individuals said.

The move leaves Azar’s immediate team with more control over the health department’s direction in the near term, after a series of developments this year that undermined the secretary’s authority, including the surprise installation of top department spokesperson Michael Caputo in April. Caputo, a longtime loyalist to President Donald Trump, began a two-month medical leave last week.

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