Thank you for your decades of public service. You served your country through multiple epidemics, pandemics, and health crises.

I do want to say I'm sorry about the threats that you have received. As someone who's

been shot at and received threats as well, my heart goes out to you. This should never

happen in America. Regardless of any disagreements we may have, you chose to serve and I want to extend our

appreciation and gratitude.

I want to thank you publicly for working with our Dr. Skocass during Operation

Warps Feed and the time you spent with us and Dr. Collins. I also want to thank you

for your willing cooperation with the select subcommittee.

You have voluntarily sat for more than 14 hours of testimony and are appearing voluntarily

today.

This is more than we can say about other witnesses we have called and we appreciate it.

I'm going to go through a list of COVID mitigation measures that you supported over the course of the pandemic and

ask you to give me a yes or no as to whether you believe these measures were justified.

Business closures?

Early on when 5,000 people were dying a day, yes.

Church closures.

Same thing.

School closures.

Again, the day at home orders.

These were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring

early on.

How long you kept them going is debatable.

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