American Oversight Launches Investigation Into White House Pandemic Preparedness

Thursday, American Oversight launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s pandemic preparedness efforts, filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking records that could shed light on whether the White House is adequately preparing for emerging infectious disease threats and appropriately coordinating the federal government’s response.

The investigation comes as the country faces a growing array of public health threats, including Ebola, hantavirus, and other infectious disease outbreaks. Simultaneously, the administration has weakened the nation’s public health capacity by cutting staff at federal health agencies, canceling research into next‑generation vaccines, delaying billions of dollars in public health grant funding, and proposing significant reductions in infectious disease research and pandemic preparedness. These actions leave infants, older adults, immunocompromised individuals, communities of color, and others at heightened risk of severe illness.

The White House recently appointed Dr. Sara Brenner to lead the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR) — an office that spent much of the last year with no stable leadership or staff overseeing the nation’s pandemic preparedness infrastructure. Congress established OPPR following the COVID-19 pandemic to coordinate the federal government’s preparedness for public health threats and ensure a rapid, coordinated response to emerging public health emergencies.

Effective preparedness depends on sustained planning, clear coordination among agencies, and maintenance of the institutional knowledge needed to respond quickly when new threats emerge. Yet it remains unclear what plans are currently guiding the federal government’s response to public health threats. The administration has reportedly departed from previous pandemic response playbooks, but little information has been released about what guidance, if any, has replaced them. Our investigation seeks to determine what planning documents are currently directing the federal government’s preparedness and response efforts and how those plans are being implemented.

“The American people deserve to know whether the Trump administration is preparing for the next public health emergency before it becomes a national crisis, as it did during the president’s first term,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “Pandemic preparedness begins long before a crisis. It requires planning, coordination, and informed decision-making before lives are placed at risk, particularly the lives of children, older adults, immunocompromised individuals, and others who face the greatest risk of severe illness. Our investigation seeks to determine how the administration is preparing for emerging infectious diseases and other public health threats, what guidance is shaping those efforts, and whether the systems designed to protect the public are equipped to respond when they’re needed most.”

We filed requests with OPPR and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeking records related to the federal government’s pandemic preparedness plans and biological incident response playbook, interagency meetings and briefings convened by OPPR, communications sent by Dr. Brenner concerning emerging disease threats, ethics and personnel records related to her appointment, and communications between Dr. Brenner and the White House in her role as Senior Counselor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The public has a significant interest in understanding how the federal government is preparing for public health threats that could upend the lives of millions of Americans. Transparency into the planning, coordination, and leadership of the nation’s pandemic preparedness efforts will help ensure that public health decisions are informed by sound governance and complete data, and that the systems established to respond to future emergencies are operating as Congress intended.

This investigation builds on our extensive work surrounding the nationwide response to the COVID-19 pandemic during the first Trump administration. We filed more than 1,000 public records requests and numerous lawsuits seeking records related to the federal government’s COVID-19 response, including the Trump administration’s political interference in public health communications, vaccine distribution, and actions taken by federal health agencies. That work helped illuminate how critical public health decisions were made during the pandemic and demonstrated the vital role transparency plays in ensuring public accountability during a public health crisis.