Released Ebola Nurse, Kaci Hickox Works for CDC; her lawyer is a White House visitor

"I Feel Like My Human Rights Were Violated"

Released Ebola Nurse, Kaci Hickox Works for CDC; her lawyer is a White House visitor 

Ebola health care worker Kaci Hickox, who was released from quarantine with the support of the White House, is a Centers For Disease Control and Prevention employee, records reveal. 

The lawyer who helped earn her release is a recent White House state dinner guest. Hickox was released from Ebola quarantine in Newark, N.J., Monday afternoon after the White House pressured New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to release the nurse that was working in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders. 

Hickox’s case for release was also bolstered by New York civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who took on Hickox’s case. “I feel like my basic human rights have been violated,” Hickox said before she was evaluated by CDC and transported back to her home in Maine. 

Here’s an overlooked factor that could have contributed to her White House-backed release: Hickox is an official CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer who performed work for the CDC in recent months. 

Hickox’s lawyer Norman Siegel, meanwhile, was an official guest at the White House State Dinner on Feb. 11, 2014, accompanying Jackie Robinson’s widow Rachel Robinson, who supported Siegel’s failed 2009 run for New York City Public Advocate. 

Siegel is the former director of the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Siegel previously partnered with Al Sharpton to fight against a New York state proposal to keep a DNA database of felons.