Top-ranking National Institutes of Health official forced to retire

Donald Trump seemed very serious on the campaign trail about draining the swamp in Washington, DC, and he's not waiting very long to accomplish that task.

One thing he's doing already is forcing overpaid and underperforming employees out of the federal government, and we have just seen a perfect example of that.

CBS News reports, "A top-ranking scientist at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Lawrence Tabak, was forced to retire this week, multiple people familiar with the move say, marking the highest-profile departure of a health official under the Trump administration so far this year."

Tabak's retirement follows a decades-long tenure at the federal medical research agency.

He was the acting director of the National Institutes of Health during the COVID pandemic and was the agency's top ethics official.

Lawrence Tabak told his colleagues that his retirement was effective as of February 11.

An email to NIH staff from Tabak didn't explain the reason behind his decision to abruptly step down.

Insiders reported that Tabak was not planning to retire until at least fall 2025.

Tabak said he "found it necessary to retire today from federal service."

Lawrence Tabak's departure was announced in an email by acting NIH Director Dr. Matthew Memoli:

"He has helped shape important policy decisions at NIH over four administrations. He has guided NIH through complex issues and will be sorely missed," Memoli said in an email on February 12 to NIH staff.

According to CBS:

The departure follows years of intense scrutiny of Tabak from Republican lawmakers at multiple congressional hearings, when he faced questioning over issues like the agency's oversight of "gain-of-function" research on viruses, which can make them more dangerous and is supposed to be tightly controlled, as well as grants to the EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.