Bright told The New York Times on Wednesday that he believed his removal was because of his internal opposition to pursuing investments in malaria drugs as potential treatments for Covid-19, which President Donald Trump has touted without scientific evidence. Three people with knowledge of HHS' recent acquisition of tens of millions of doses of those drugs said that Bright had supported those acquisitions in internal communications, with one official saying that Bright praised the move as a win for the health department as part of an email exchange that was first reported by Reuters last week, although Bright's message was not publicly reported.

"If Bright opposed hydroxychloroquine, he certainly didn't make that clear from his email — quite the opposite," said the official, who has seen copies of the email exchanges.

In a statement late Wednesday, an HHS official directly linked Bright's decisions to the health department's acquisition of the malaria drugs.

"As it relates to chloroquine, it was Dr. Bright who requested an Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for donations of chloroquine that Bayer and Sandoz recently made to the Strategic National Stockpile for use on COVID-19 patients," spokesperson Caitlin Oakley said. "The EUA is what made the donated product available for use in combating COVID-19."

Bright did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Tuesday and Wednesday. In a statement released by his lawyers, Bright said that he will ask the HHS’s inspector general to “investigate the manner in which this administration has politicized the work of BARDA and has pressured me and other conscientious scientists to fund companies with political connections and efforts that lack scientific merit.”

Asked about Bright's claims at Wednesday's press briefing, Trump denied knowledge of his role and his abrupt ouster.

"I never heard of him," Trump said. "The guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. You'd have to hear the other side."

Inside HHS, Bright's ouster is being positioned as a way to improve a crucial disease-fighting arm at a time of national crisis, amid some officials’ complaints that BARDA moved too slowly, focused on the wrong investments and took too long to award its contracts.

“BARDA was not as responsive during the crisis” as it could have been, said one former official. “Rather than prioritizing therapeutics that could be available in weeks, Bright focused on products that would take weeks or months.” For instance, BARDA didn’t make what’s known as a broad agency announcement to solicit potential investments in diagnostics, vaccines or treatments until March, five weeks after HHS Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency over the Covid-19 outbreak.

Health officials have warned that the coronavirus crisis will plague the United States for months, with some predicting a second, more damaging outbreak of the virus this fall. Meanwhile, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Wednesday warned CBS News that a vaccine is at least a year away, if not longer.

HHS on Wednesday did not respond to questions about Bright’s leadership of BARDA or whether he had accepted his new role, referring instead to an earlier statement.