Federal prosecutors investigate Pfizer for possible election interference
Federal prosecutors are investigating drug giant Pfizer for possibly having interfered in the 2020 presidential election by delaying statements about its COVID-19 vaccine until after votes were in.
On November 7, 2020, Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential race after campaigning against Donald Trump for supposedly mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic, among other things. Two days later, Pfizer announced that trials for its COVID-19 mRNA vaccine were successful. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had previously told The Today Show that it would know the results in October, and Trump confirmed that the October timeline was part of the original plan that he oversaw as part of Operation Warp Speed. At the time, Trump accused Pfizer of trying to influence the election.
“Pfizer . . . decided to not assess the results of their vaccine, in other words, not come out with the vaccine until just after the election,” he said.
Did a former exec confirm Pfizer’s role?
The US Attorney’s office in Manhattan is now investigating the claim based on alleged remarks from former Pfizer executive Phil Dormitzer, who led the pharma giant’s vaccine research and development team until he left for rival GSK in 2021. According to the Wall Street Journal, GSK executives came forward after Trump’s victory in November, saying that Dormitzer confirmed Pfizer’s intentional delay of the vaccine announcement to swing the election for Biden.
“The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has interviewed at least two people in connection with the allegation, including a GSK executive who took notes of a conversation with the former Pfizer scientist, according to one of the people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported. “Prosecutors are planning to interview a third person in coming days, some of the people familiar with the probe said. Pfizer officials haven’t been interviewed.”
Dormitzer has denied the allegations, saying: “My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment. Any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine’s development would be incorrect.”
Pfizer also denied the allegations, claiming that “any allegation of impropriety is utter nonsense.”
