Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., said the whistleblower recently contacted his office, also alleging retaliation by higher-ups for having flagged safety issues.
โMy concern from the moment I heard it is that individuals at HHS are not taking the complaints of HHS employees seriously," Gomez said in an interview.
While helping the evacuees, team members noticed that workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were in full gear to protect them from getting sick.
Without referring directly to the whistleblower's complaint, Gomez questioned HHS Secretary Alex Azar about the situation during a congressional hearing Thursday.
If one of the HHS workers had become infected, that person could then have unwittingly infected others, Gomez said.