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The chair of the House committee investigating the COVID-19 pandemic, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), has warned of potential subpoenas against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials. This comes after expressing dissatisfaction with the agency’s level of cooperation in providing documents crucial to understanding the virus’s origins, vaccine communication, and policies regarding COVID-19 closures.

In a letter to HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation Melanie Egorin, Wenstrup detailed his grievances, particularly highlighting Egorin’s public testimony and the perceived ongoing reluctance of the agency to fully comply with the committee’s document requests.

Despite Egorin’s insistence during a recent hearing that HHS has been cooperative, handing over thousands of pages in response, Wenstrup and other committee Republicans argue that the materials received are either too heavily redacted or irrelevant. “We know, for a fact, that the Department is currently withholding critical documents. The Department’s failure to provide the requested documents is unacceptable,” Wenstrup pointed out in his letter. He emphasized the committee’s readiness to employ “the compulsory process to obtain the testimony of Department employees who know the answers to these questions” if HHS does not meet the latest information requests to his satisfaction.

However, this stance has sparked accusations from Democrats on the panel of politicizing the pandemic response to cast the Biden administration in a negative light rather than addressing genuine issues. Ranking member Raul Ruiz (D-CA) also pointed out that agency officials have spent over 80 hours in transcribed interviews with the committee.

The inquiry has also included closed-door testimonies from significant figures such as the nation’s former top infectious diseases doctor, Anthony Fauci, and the former National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, with Fauci expected to offer public testimony later in the year.