Media Celebrates Fired NIH Official Jeanne Marrazzo With Fake “Whistleblower” Label

 by Paul Thacker

Oh boy, another one popped up over the weekend.

A slew of stories hit the internet last week alleging that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ignoring The Science™ and fired ANOTHER federal scientist who IS following The Science™. Just a couple weeks ago, former CDC Director Susan Monarez made the exact same allegation: Kennedy Jr. fired her because she was following The Science™ while he was not.

Monarez was then embarrassed and humiliated during a Senate hearing.

Under close questioning, Senators discovered that Monarez’s allegations concerned policy disagreements she had with her boss Secretary Kennedy, not science disputes. And who hasn’t disagreed with their boss?

The hidden politics of Monarez’s hoary claims came to light when Senators began questioning Monarez to explain how and why she showed up to a hearing ostensibly about science, yet flanked by Democratic Party activist lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell.

“Do you want to introduce your lawyers that you brought today?” one Senator asked. Monarez then ducked and dodged questions for over three minutes with a crazed smile plastered across her face. Goodbye credibility!

As with Monarez, the latest media kerfuffle involves Secretary Kennedy firing a federal official whose lawyer ran to legacy media outlets, planting nonsense complaints that Kennedy fired her because he doesn’t follow The Science™. In this case, the particulars involve former NIH official Jeanne Marrazzo, Fauci’s handpicked replacement, and notorious Democratic Party activist lawyer, Debra Katz.

As head of one of the NIH’s many institutes, Marrazzo worked at the discretion of the HHS Secretary and the NIH Director, who both had broad authority under the law to terminate her at any time.

But check out all the headlines that Katz drummed up for “whistleblower” Marrazzo.

Here’s the New York Times fluff piece: “Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Marrazzo, said in a statement this week that the firing was retaliatory.”

Katz enjoys portraying herself as a whistleblower attorney, but her legal status is often overshadowed by partisan DC credentials that include being a beloved Democratic Party donor and having a notorious reputation for launching lawsuits that boost Democratic Party special interests.

The Washington Post reported in 2018 that Katz was a member of the Trump “resistance” whose views “test the line between legal advocacy and political activism.”

Katz has circulated in the tight-knit DC media and legal ecosystem for a couple decades, but she rocketed to national attention in 2018 when reporters began circulating rumors that an anonymous accuser said Trump’s Supreme Court candidate, Bret Kavanaugh, had sexually harassed her during high school. When the anonymous accuser was later revealed to be Christy Blasey Ford, the lawyer popping up beside her was none other than Debra Katz.

Political insiders were immediately suspicious.

During an ABC News panel discussion, Megyn Kelly noted that, during the Clinton years, Katz was “very defensive of Bill Clinton when he got accused by Paul Jones, and said that one allegation of Bill Clinton taking out his private parts in front of Paul Jones, wasn’t enough for sexual harassment.”

That’s right, Katz defended Bill Clinton when he yanked out his winky and wagged it at Paula Jones. Guess why? Surprise! Documents show Debra Katz is huge Hillary Clinton fan.

Records from OpenSecrets.org show Katz had given thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Hillary Clinton and other Democratic Party politicians. But one spicy document is even more revealing.

In the lead up to the 2016 election, hackers broke into Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails and began leaking them on social media. Included with the leaked files is a campaign fundraiser memo addressed to Hillary Clinton in 2015. The “Women for Hillary” memo reminds Clinton that she last saw Debra “Debbie” Katz at a Hillary for America finance event in DC.

“Debbie has raised more than $29,000 for YOUR campaign.”

With so much of Debra Katz’s financial ties to Democrats known throughout Washington, things got particularly tricky during the 2018 Senate hearing for the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. When Republicans began reading media reports about Brett Kavanaugh’s anonymous accuser, they reached out to Katz who was identified as the accuser’s attorney.

So that she would not have to face heated public attention, Republican Senators told Katz that they would do whatever Blasey Ford wanted to make her comfortable, to include flying female Senate staff to California for a private interview.

But Katz appears to have never informed Blasey Ford that she could speak to Committee staff in private. This became clear during the Senate hearing when Blasey Ford was asked if she knew she could have retained her privacy and spoke to staff behind closed doors.

Katz remained in the background, but her co-counsel jumped forward to try and shut down this line of questioning. But Blasey Ford then testified that she was not aware of the offer. Watch the exchange.

After the hearing, Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released a statement noting the Committee had made multiple offers to Debra Katz to accommodate Blasey Ford, however she preferred. Katz never forwarded the offer to Blasey Ford, because she was apparently using Blasey Ford for her own agenda.

Clearly, Dr. Ford’s attorneys did not tell her that we could protect her privacy and speak to her in California. The ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct require a lawyer to consult with his or her client about the means to be used to accomplish the client’s objectives—including informing the client of settlement offers. It is deeply unfortunate that Dr. Ford’s Democratic-activist lawyers appear to have used Dr. Ford in order to advance their own political agenda.

Katz’s political agenda became clear about a year later when a video circulated of her giving a talk at the University of Baltimore. Katz detailed that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was for the greater good as it helped to damage Kavanaugh’s reputation. “He will always have an asterisk next to his name …. That was part of what motivated Christine….”

Back to NIH’s Jeanne Marrazzo.

Marrazzo was placed on administrative leave back in April during a massive layoff at the NIH. Tony Fauci had picked Marrazzo to run the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, one of the several dozen institutes within the NIH. While the President appoints the head of the NIH and the leader of the NCI (National Cancer Institute) the Secretary of HHS appoints the other institute directors, such as Marrazzo.

The law also states that the Secretary of HHS or the NIH Director may “terminate” institute directors, such as Marrazzo, at any time.

So why is Marrazzo running all over the place complaining she is a whistleblower? First, Marrazzo does not meet the legal criteria for being a whistleblower, because disagreeing with your boss doens’t make you a whistleblowwer. “She was constantly complaining in meetings about Memoli and the changes he was making,” an NIH source tells me. Last January, the White House chose Matthew Memoli to run the NIH until Jay Bhattacharya could get Senate confirmation. “If you keep disagreeing with your boss, what did she think was gonna happen?”

A close reading of Marrazzo’s “whistleblower” complaint filed by Debra Katz just a month back, reveals that the disagreements Marrazzo got into with her NIH bosses were not “science” disputes, but arguments over policy changes.

Here’s one example: when the new NIH leadership began to change priorities in early 2025, Marrazzo complained this violated “scientific integrity.”

The rest of Marrazzo’s complaint runs along similar lines: she didn’t like the policy changes, because, in her mind, those changes didn’t follow The Science™ as she sees it.

An official inside HHS dismissed Marrazzo’s claims as nonsense. “It’s a ridiculous complaint. She was handpicked by Fauci and doesn’t like the new administration, so why would they keep her?”

Marrazzo’s complaint has been filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) where it will likely be ignored, ending her legal appeal process. Marrazzo will nonetheless remain celebrated in legacy media as “whistleblower” who stood up for The Science™. So expect to see her popping up on occassion in legacy media outlets.

“This was an obvious political stunt,” an HHS official says.

https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/media-celebrates-fired-nih-official