A little background
On September 28 I attended Senator Ron Johnson’s roundtable, “COVID-19 Hospital Protocols: Real Stories from Real People,” in the Kennedy Caucus Room. It was the first event he had devoted entirely to what happened inside hospitals. I interviewed him in the hallway afterward. That exchange is below.
That evening there was a MAHA reception I was not invited to. Like any good gumshoe, I grabbed an attorney and a medical doctor and we talked our way in.
The event was attended by quite a few people like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., James O’Keefe, Dr. Sabine Hazan and more. There was also another notable person there, Russell Brand.
Russell’s journey the past 9 years has been interesting to watch. He went from being a sex addict, among other forms of addiction he had, to ultimately finding his faith in Christ.
In 2021, Brand became highly vocal about concerns regarding COVID vaccine mandates and questioning government authority. From my own personal experience, Brand was eloquent, highly informed, and rightly calling out issues that were increasingly being ignored by our public-health authorities. Those authorities, we have since learned, did not always have the liberties of citizens in mind.
Brand now faces 7 counts, three of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault, alleged to run from 1999 to 2009 and involving six women. The first five were filed in 2025. Two more were added that December. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial starts October 12 at Southwark Crown Court in London. In interviews since the charges were filed, Brand has admitted having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old high school girl when he was 30. He has said it was in 2005. This relationship is not part of the charges against him, as the UK age of consent is 16. Brand has called it “morally and spiritually wrong.”
At this MAHA event, I briefly met Brand and took a photo with him and Rachel Rodriguez, the running mate for lieutenant governor of Florida. I then posted the photograph to my Magic Feathers Facebook page.
A troll enters the chat
The photo received a comment from someone named “Ajay Vatave” that piqued my interest.
“Of course MAGA voters proud to stand with people who have multiple sexual assault allegations against them…tracks with their values or lack thereof.”
So I looked into the profile of the account making the comment. The account was facebook.com/ajay.vatave, and it listed the National Institutes of Health as his employer, in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
I then responded with the comment:
“Ajay Vatave, your boss Robert F. Kennedy, Jr was there too, Ajay. There are a couple of million murder allegations against your agency. NIHGate.com”
It turns out there is in fact an Ajay Vatave who is Assistant Director for Tools and Analytics in NIH’s Office of Evaluation, Performance, and Reporting. The contact page lists him, M.D., M.P.H., at vataveav@od.nih.gov.
Having dealt with online trolls before in our ShotsGate coverage, these types of comments are rarely isolated events. I suspected there were other statements and comments from Ajay. By searching Google for “Ajay Vatave” and random keywords like “antivaxxer” or “MAGA,” I was able to obtain links to posts with his comments on quite a few threads involving those topics.
For example, in publicly visible Facebook comments (which are now deleted), the account attributed to Ajay called President Trump “a liable rapist” and stated “Antivaxer and MAGA it’s definitely hard to get any dumber than that.”
I saved screenshots of everything I could find.
There is a federal law that prohibits partisan political activity by most executive-branch employees while on duty, in a federal building, or using government resources, and bars them from using their official title to affect an election. It is called the Hatch Act. Listing an employer on a profile is not, by itself, a violation. The Office of Special Counsel enforces it. Penalties can include a reprimand, suspension, or removal.
The posts show the attitude. In 2021 the FDA and CDC relied on a VAERS algorithm that did not flag myocarditis, and the NIH director was warned that the system could not see the harms doctors were reporting. An assistant director who calls those reports “BS,” on an account that lists the agency as his employer, is not a surprise. He is a sample. The screenshots are the evidence.
In the next few articles I will describe what else I found on the Ajay Vatave account, spanning years. He called the actions of a mother “gross.” She believes her 24-year-old daughter died of an aggressive cancer after mandated Pfizer shots. He called a medical doctor a “clown,” and said he would “completely obliterate” the man’s “BS.” He told a former school counselor that holding that job was “like child abuse,” and then wrote, “stay away from children. you are unfit to be around them.”
More to come, including what happened when I emailed Vatave at his NIH account.
Pharma Lobbyist 'BIO' Paid Groups Who Targeted Doctors and Nurses
BIO is a lobbyist whose members include Pfizer, Moderna, Gilead and all the big COVID response winners. BIO helped fund groups like Public Good Projects, the organizer of another group that launched medical license complaints against doctors whose opinions threatened the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization.
Check to see if they are Jews, Jew backgrounds or funded by Jews
Nice work following up on a photo op. These hidden trolls should be exposed and confronted with their ignorant and callous deeds. Firing would be appropriate.