Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told President Trump’s nominee for inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that his professional history has raised “serious doubt” about his ability to be an “impartial investigator” for the agency.
In a letter provided first to The Hill, Warren addressed Thomas March Bell, Trump’s nominee for HHS inspector general, and brought up accusations that he mismanaged taxpayer funds as well as her own misgivings that his “highly partisan positions” will influence his conduct should he be confirmed.
Bell has worked closely with the GOP, formerly working as a Republican staff director and an attorney for the Justice Department. He helped to establish a “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” under the HHS Office for Civil Rights during Trump’s first term, though it’s unclear if this office is still operating.
He currently serves as senior counsel for Republicans on the House Administration Committee.
Warren specifically cited his role as head of the congressional Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives in 2015, which carried out a 15-month investigation into Planned Parenthood. Despite finding no evidence of wrongdoing, the panel still recommended defunding Planned Parenthood.
“This calls into question your ability to perform high-quality, unbiased investigative work,” wrote Warren.
“After 15 months and $1.6 million in taxpayer dollars, your investigation found ‘no evidence of wrongdoing,’ yet nevertheless recommended that ‘the National Institutes of Health be required to stop funding fetal tissue research, and that … Planned Parenthood be stripped of U.S. funding,’ illustrating that you are motivated by political goals, rather than impartial fact-finding efforts,” she continued.
The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to consider Bell’s nomination on Wednesday, along with a slew of other Trump nominees.
Senate Democrats on the committee have called for Bell’s nomination to be halted.
“Mr. Bell has been nominated to fill a position which is not vacant as President Trump’s attempt to remove the current HHS IG Christi Grimm was unlawful and illegitimate. Proceeding with Mr. Bell’s nomination would undermine the integrity of the IG’s office, and deeply undermine the credibility of laws passed by Congress,” Democratic members of the Finance Committee said last week.
Along with concerns about Bell’s ability to act impartially, Warren further cited his history of alleged financial mismanagement.
“In 1997, you were reportedly forced to resign as deputy director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality after a legislative audit found that you authorized nearly $8,000 in payments and taxpayer funds to a former spokesperson with no documentation, violating not only ‘internal procedures’ but also Commonwealth-wide policies designed to protect taxpayer funds,” she wrote.
The senator from Massachusetts requested to know how Bell would handle requests from Democratic and Republican lawmakers; whether he would interfere in the work of career officials at the HHS Office of the Inspector General; whether he would recuse himself from matters involving Planned Parenthood given his history; and whether he currently maintained relationships with anti-abortion groups.
