CBS News reports that the science division of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy is now sitting empty. However, the Huffington Post says that the White House has denied that report.
According to CBS News, the last three science division staffers, holdovers from the Obama administration, left last week. An unnamed White House official tells CBS News that there are still 35 staffers working at OSTP and that "[a]ll of the work that we have been doing is still being done."
The science division is one of four within OSTP, CBS News notes, adding that OSTP had about a hundred employees during the Obama administration. "Under the previous administration, OSTP had grown exponentially over what it had been before," the official adds. "Before the Obama administration, it had usually held 50 to 60 or so policy experts, director-level people, for all of OSTP."
However, the White House has denied that the science division is empty and a spokesperson says there are 12 staffers working there and 35 working overall at OSTP, the Huffington Post reports.
"This [report] is not true," White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells the Huffington Post. "Sadly, someone was more concerned about attacking [President Donald Trump] than getting their story straight."
Huffington Post adds that the Trump administration has yet to name a presidential science advisor, who would oversee the OSTP.