House Republicans subpoenaed Pfizer’s former Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of RNA and Viral Vaccines Dr. Philip Dormitzer. The House Judiciary Committee requested in May that Dormitzer voluntarily cooperate with an investigation of whether Pfizer withheld the positive results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials to influence the 2020 election. However, the committee is now resorting to a subpoena, saying that the doctor failed to comply with the original request.
In a letter to Dormitzer, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the former Pfizer executive’s "testimony is critical for our oversight" and that his attorney did not provide a reason as to why he could not comply with the committee’s request. Jordan also reiterated the claim at the heart of the committee’s investigation, which was "that senior Pfizer executives conspired to withhold public health information so as to influence the 2020 presidential election."
Phil Dormitzer, global head of vaccines research and development at GSK Plc, at the pharmaceutical company's research and development center in Wavre, Belgium, on Thursday, May 11, 2023. (Ksenia Kuleshova/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"The Committee received information that on three occasions in November 2024, Dr. Dormitzer disclosed to his then-employer that the three most senior people in Pfizer R&D were involved with a decision to deliberately slow down clinical testing so that it would not be complete prior to the results of the presidential election that year," the House Judiciary Committee wrote in a statement. "In these interactions, Dr. Dormitzer was clear that this was not a situation of delaying disclosure of completed results, but was a situation of slowing down results before disclosure became necessary."
A nurse prepares a Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination as part of a vaccine drive by the Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians in Arleta, Los Angeles, California, on August 23, 2021. ( REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)
Shortly after the November 2024 election, Dormitzer allegedly approached the human resources team at GSK, where he worked at the time, about being relocated abroad, according to a House Judiciary letter from May 2025. The committee included a statement from GSK in which the company alleged that when asked about what prompted the request, Dormitzer claimed he feared being investigated by the Trump administration and made a comment suggesting the timing of the COVID vaccine was not a "coincidence."
The committee also stated in its May 2025 letter that Dormitzer was accused of telling GSK employees that in late 2020, senior people in Pfizer R&D deliberately slowed down clinical testing of the vaccine. Dormitzer was asked to provide the committee with documents, including texts and emails, regarding the reporting of data on Pfizer’s clinical testing of the COVID vaccine, among other things.
Vials labeled "COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine" and a syringe are seen in front of the Pfizer logo in this illustration taken February 9, 2021. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic / Reuters)
In 2020, as the country was in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccine became a major part of the heated presidential election. The subject became a flashpoint in both the debates between Trump and then-candidate Joe Biden and between then-VP candidate Kamala Harris and then-VP Mike Pence. Harris said during the VP debate that she would take the vaccine if public health professionals, not Trump, advised the public to get the shot.
Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla reportedly expressed disappointment in the politicization of the vaccine following a presidential debate between Trump and Biden, according to Politico, which cited an internal memo. The outlet reported that in the memo Bourla vowed Pfizer "would never succumb to political pressure."