Defense Department officials urge the Trump administration not to terminate grants for biothreat research, Harvard University told court

According to the school’s latest court application, a Defense Department official told others in the Trump administration that Harvard’s $12 million biothreat research grant should not be terminated due to national security risks.

Disclosures are part of internal Trump’s internal administration documents reviewed by Harvard attorneys. Harvard University said records show that the White House directive suddenly frozen more than $2 billion in federal funds, violating federal law.

According to the document, Defense Department officials wrote: “Harvard is currently the highest performance of the plan.”

“Inadequate knowledge of biologically threatened landscapes can cause serious harm to national security,” the official added.

The Defense Department told Harvard that this will end in mid-May.

“Although there is a clear public and national interest,” Harvard attorney wrote.

“In the government’s opinion, as long as Harvard is punished for exercising its First Amendment rights, the means can be justified.” “Nothing in the government’s administrative record shows that the Secretary of Defense succumbed to the confession of the Contracting Party officials.”

CNN has contacted the Department of Defense.

John Shaw, deputy provost at Harvard University, wrote in a statement of sworn in office that the cut grants would irreversibly undermine several research projects, especially in science labs.

“Sensitive equipment will be idle and degraded. Decayable samples will be destroyed. Real-time specimens will be euthanized… Many laboratories rely on continuous processes, so interruptions will make years of work useless.”

Even with billions of dollars in donations, Harvard “cannot make up for the funding gap itself,” Xiao wrote.

“Harvard’s efforts are at a critical point in Phase 1 as they have just begun microfluidic experiments, which will be for whether the program’s goals can be achieved,” the person wrote. “They are also key integrators of a variety of technologies that can achieve this effort and cannot be easily replicated.”

More documents will be submitted for the case next month. The oral debate is scheduled for July 21.

Internal management documents

Harvard also provides the most full expression for other examples of research projects that have lost federal funding.

According to Shaw, it includes a pediatric HIV/AIDS study and is supported by a $88 million grant; a $7 million grant to prevent breast cancer in women who may be at higher risk; and a $10 million from Harvard University is used to investigate the role of fighting antibiotic-resistant infections.

Harvard said in court filing Monday that it has terminated the $2.4 billion federal award, representing more than 950 ongoing research projects.

Harvard proposed this approach in court on Monday that the institution violated the law by a sudden freeze of university research grants and the federal government has not worked to investigate its anti-Semitism allegations at Harvard.

“The directive to freeze and terminate Harvard’s research funding comes directly from the White House, which determines the form of such termination and sets any deadline for any specific termination,” Harvard’s attorney wrote.

Harvard’s internal federal agency documents included Trump administration officials acknowledged the White House’s green light on the grant termination, and the template letters the White House wanted to use were sent to the university from different federal agencies.

“The White House demanded the cancellation of Harvard funding, required institutions to terminate funding, leaving them without the time or freedom to explain their decisions, considering important aspects of issues and alternatives, or explaining the key dependency interests of the Harvard blacklist being abandoned,” the university’s application. ”

Lawyers at Harvard University said records in the case showed that the government had no evidence supporting anti-Semitism claims before the government terminated federal grants to universities.

They wrote: “The government is anxious to terminate Harvard’s funding, not because after careful evaluation, it concluded that the federal government’s financial support for certain programs of Harvard’s 12 different schools covered up anti-Semitism, but because the White House calls for a complete termination of Harvard-wide funding termination in order to impose the greatest punishment on Harvard.”

This story has been updated with other developments.

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