Michael Caputo

Michael Raymon Caputo (born March 24, 1962) and has accused CDC scientists of sedition.

On September 14, 2020, Caputo posted a Facebook video in which he claimed that "there are hit squads being trained all over this country" to mount armed opposition to a second term for President Trump. He also stated "You understand that they're going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that's where this is going." Two days later Caputo took a two-month medical leave. Caputo said of himself that his physical health was in question, and his "mental health has definitely failed." On September 24, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma that had spread from his throat to his neck and head.

Early life and education Caputo was born in 1962 in Buffalo, New York, where he spent the bulk of his early years in the region known as the Southtowns. Caputo's early public relations work was in Hawaii while with the United States Army, which he joined directly after finishing high school.

Russian advisor and media consultant After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Caputo established residence in Russia in 1994. He served as an adviser to Boris Yeltsin in 1995. He moved back from Russia to the U.S. late in 2000. During the campaign, Caputo was profiled by The New York Times, which described Caputo's "impish spirit and no-holds-barred campaign style" as a key factor helping Paladino, then a little-known figure, gain attention in seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

In 2016, offices of Michael Caputo Public Relations were located in East Aurora, New York.

Caputo was a senior adviser to Trump's political efforts from November 2015 to June 2016. He had tweeted in support of Lewandowski's leaving; in his resignation letter to Manafort said he regretted the statement on Twitter. After news reports of Donald Trump's disclosure of classified information to Russia in May 2017, Caputo told the Associated Press that leaks from within the Trump Administration were caused by "a coordinated, silent coup."

In 2019 and 2020, Caputo posted numerous sexually crude and sexist tweets directed at women.

In early 2020, Caputo posted multiple offensive and racist tweets about Chinese people; he deleted almost all of his past tweets before assuming a position at HHS. He also produced and hosted a documentary by the same name which was aired on the pro-Trump television channel One America News.

Trump administration

In April 2020, despite Caputo having no medical or scientific background, he was appointed by the White House as assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for public affairs – in effect, the department's chief spokesperson.

Caputo and other political appointees on his team tried to change, delay, suppress and retroactively edit scientific reports on COVID-19 by the Centers for Disease Control that were deemed to contradict or undermine what Trump was saying publicly, according to a report by Politico in September 2020. In emails to the head of CDC, Alexander accused CDC scientists of attempting to "hurt the president" and writing "hit pieces on the administration". CDC resisted many of the changes, but increasingly allowed HHS personnel to review articles and suggest changes before publication. Emails obtained by The New York Times in September 2020 showed Caputo and Alexander working to discredit CDC scientists, notably principal deputy director Anne Schuchat, and to silence scientists speaking to the press, in an effort to depict a rosier outlook for the pandemic.

Caputo was the key figure in a planned HHS advertising campaign, funded with $300 million requisitioned from the CDC, which aimed to "defeat despair" about COVID-19 by airing video interviews between administration officials and celebrities. The campaign suffered numerous setbacks, including opposition from HHS officials regarding the aim of the campaign and a lack of interest from celebrities. Also, the company hired to film the interviews, which is headed by a business associate of Caputo's, had no experience with public health campaigns and struggled with the amount of work required to produce the videos. Senior House Democrats launched an investigation into a $250 million contract awarded to a market research firm, and questioned the political motivations behind airing such a campaign right before the 2020 presidential election. In a Facebook video on September 13, Caputo said that Trump had personally directed him to work on the campaign.

On September 13, 2020, Caputo asserted in a video on his personal Facebook page that CDC scientists were engaged in "sedition" with a "resistance unit" against Trump, and were "meeting in coffee shops" to plan their next attack on Trump. Caputo added that left-wing "hit squads being trained all over this country" were preparing an armed insurrection after the 2020 presidential election, advising his listeners to "buy ammunition". He continued, "You understand that they're going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that's where this is going." He later said his physical and mental health were deteriorating and he feared being alone, describing "shadows on the ceiling" in his apartment. On September 15, Caputo apologized to HHS staff and indicated he might soon be leaving the agency, possibly on medical leave, admitting "he had never read" one of the MMWRs.

Two days after Alexander was ousted and Caputo went on leave, the CDC reversed its much-criticized statement saying that asymptomatic people who have been in close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus did not need to receive COVID-19 testing; the statement had been forced through at the direction of HHS leadership and the White House over the objections of scientists and without going through the usual CDC scientific review process.

Investigation Due to his time working on the Trump campaign and the fact that he previously worked for politicians in Russia, Caputo was contacted by the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on May 9, 2017, as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. a Russian national who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Caputo later denied contact with Russian officials or having discussed Russia with Trump or with other campaign aides.

Caputo hired attorney Dennis Vacco to represent him during the investigation, and subsequently stated that he had liquidated his children's college funds to pay Vacco.

In May 2026, Caputo said he was requesting $2.7 million in reimbursement from a $1.776 billion fund created by the second Trump administration for victims of alleged “lawfare”, saying that the "machinery of government was clearly weaponized against my family."

Personal life While working in Russia in the 1990s, Caputo met and married a Russian student studying astrophysics; their marriage ended in a divorce.