CDC director’s lawyers say firing is ‘legally deficient’ based on a technicality

Monarez surprised many earlier on Wednesday when her lawyers rebuffed reports that she had resigned, saying she would not do so. Later that evening, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that Monarez was “no longer” head of the CDC after a protracted disagreement with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy. In a statement early Thursday morning, Monarez’s lawyers once again rebuffed the White House after it said she had been “terminated.”

“Our client was notified tonight by White House staff in the personnel office that she was fired. As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” her lawyer Mark Zaid said in a statement on Bluesky.

“For this reason, we reject notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director. We have notified the White House Counsel of our position,” he added.

Zaid is a longtime critic of Trump, representing many disaffected staffers suing the administration during his second term.

Trump nominated Monarez to lead the CDC, and she was confirmed to the position in July. She feuded behind the scenes with Kennedy for some time, but their disagreements came out into the open over her attempted ousting. Her lawyers argued she was being targeted for refusing “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives.”

Monarez had sent a note to CDC employees on Aug. 12, shortly after a shooting targeting CDC headquarters, warning that the “dangers of misinformation and its promulgation has now led to deadly consequences.”

The Trump administration sought her resignation on Wednesday, though she refused to do so. Her attorneys said Wednesday night that she “has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Washington Examiner roughly an hour later that Monarez had been terminated.

TRUMP CDC DIRECTOR OUSTED LESS THAN A MONTH AFTER TAKING OFFICE

“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” he said. “Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position.”

Kennedy’s unorthodox approach to public health has led to a slew of resignations at the CDC, including Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.