Dr. Steven Hatfill was abruptly fired this last weekend. No reason for his dismissal has been provided and apparently Kennedy never called Hatfill to explain.

This is a disturbing development for the MAHA movement because it was Hatfill, together with his associate John Knox, who was driving the most substantive reforms at HHS. It was Knox and Hatfill who cut over $1 billion in biological weapons research from BARDA (the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) — including $500 million in contracts that funded the poisonous mRNA technology. It was Hatfill who was pushing for accountability in the approval of the toxic COVID jabs. And it was Hatfill who was pushing NIH to investigate the effect of those shots on women’s fertility.

The sudden firing of Dr. Hatfill mirrors my own experience at HHS as a MAHA loyalist.

After my own departure from HHS, I attended a MAHA social event and was surprised at the attention I received. I thought it was odd as there was nothing I had done to merit such praise. I quickly learned that it was because I had stood up to Secretary Kennedy’s “Deputy” Chief of Staff, Stefanie Spear. One former HHS colleague told me in a hushed tone: “You were the first person at HHS to push back against her. Everyone in the building is scared [explitive] of her. Thank you for acting on our behalf.”

Who is Stefanie Spear? Few of Trump’s MAGA base would recognize her. Most MAHA activists may not know much about her but they do know the number one rule in the world of RFK Jr: you must go through Stefanie Spear to get to Bobby.  She’s the gatekeeper.

Stefanie Spear has been a close confidant of RFK Jr. for over 20 years. In 2011, RFK Jr. lent his name and credibility to Spear’s tiny environmental organization EcoWatch, helping launch its online environmental news service. From this platform, Spear spoke of the dangers of global warming — including blaming global warming (without evidence) for Hurricane Sandy and other large storms. She also appeared on a Communist Party USA sponsored panel to rail against “Big Oil” and the Keystone Pipeline.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, she authored a piece called “10 Reasons Bernie Sanders is ‘Rockin’ in the Free World.” In the piece, she praised Sanders and Pope Francis for their views on climate change. Spear’s political philosophy is much closer to a communist than the economic nationalist. Indeed, Kennedy campaign staffers told me she detested President Trump — calling him a fascist and a threat to democracy.

So how did a radical environmental activist — with little political or management experience — come to exert such extraordinary influence over the Secretary of Health and Human Services and, thus, over HHS and its sub-agencies? And why would RFK Jr. trust this person to do that job?

I know better than most what happened to Dr. Hatfill because it happened to me. I proudly served Secretary Kennedy, and President Trump, as Director of MAHA Implementation at HHS before my time was cut short by Stefanie Spear. I lasted 52 days.

My job was to ensure there was a MAHA angle to everything we did at HHS. I loved my job and felt I was making a real difference, so I was disappointed it ended so suddenly. But, truth be told, it was an inevitability because Stefanie Spear never wanted me there in the first place.

Early in my tenure, I texted RFK Jr. about the resignation of UVA’s president, Jim Ryan. Having grown up in Charlottesville, I’d intended nothing more than to share information seemingly of interest to us both — but for Spear it was a gross and impermissible violation of norms. I got a reprimand by text almost immediately: “Please reach out to me on things you think the Secretary should amplify as we have a system for this.”

Translation: I was no longer able to contact the Secretary directly — though I had done so many times in the past.

We all have our failings, of course, and Spear’s personal lack of charm would not be interesting to anyone (myself included) so long as the larger agenda is being served. After all, Washington DC is full of rude gatekeepers. The real question is whether Spear’s shortcomings, and her own bizarre relationship with the man she so slavishly serves, are undermining the Secretary — and the ambitious and vitally important MAHA agenda he represents.

Indeed, Stefanie Spear has ruthlessly sidelined even those people who fought side by side with Kennedy through much of his career against his Big Pharma and establishment foes. I expected Spear to have been close with these long-time activists but, for instance, when we were in Idaho with Health Freedom Defense Fund President Leslie Manookian (a good friend of the Secretary), Spear acted like she barely knew her. Spear’s relationship with her former colleagues at Children’s Health Defense was similarly cold. Her default attitude toward these MAHA activists was basically contempt.

During my brief period at HHS, I argued to Secretary Kennedy that, given the intensity of the opposition, what he desperately needed was a political team to counter the forces tirelessly working against his agenda. After all, his enemies include: the uniparty, the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, chemical companies, processed food producers, and Wall St. This team would map the opposition to Secretary Kennedy in Congress.

But it never came to pass. As Stefanie Spear told me, her was to rely on Kennedy’s “special bond” with the President to advance his agenda. (A bond so “special” that Trump proudly announced that he received a COVID booster in October 2025.) As those of us who have supported Trump since day one, and have been intimately involved in “Trump World” well know, Trump is who he is. He operates largely by whim, and there is never a master plan. He wants to be liked and he often remembers only the last person he spoke with.

We’ve already seen the consequences for MAHA of the Spear/RFK approach with the July 10^th approval of the Moderna SPIKEVAXX Covid vaccine for “high-risk” children. Then, just a couple weeks ago, President Trump rolled out the red carpet for Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, awarding Pfizer $70 billion, praising them for reshoring their poisonous drugs and vaccines, and telling them how great of a job they did during COVID, while Kennedy stood by. Never mind that RFK had previously called the company “a craven, venal, homicidal, morally bankrupt, criminal enterprise that has captured and corrupted its regulators.”

Another outcome of Spear’s strategy: the FDA’s Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Center, Vinnay Prasad was the target of a coordinated campaign (likely driven by the pharmaceutical industry) to remove him from his position.

So the sudden firing of Hatfill is part of a trend. What’s even more troubling is whether Hatfill’s firing is connected to a larger coup against RFK Jr as described by Sayer Ji. I was contacted last week by an MSNBC reporter who is writing a profile on John Knox. Why would a reporter be assigned to write a story on Knox — a little-known official — a few days before Hatfill is fired?