EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Scott Atlas, President Trump’s special adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, formally resigned from his post on Monday, Fox News has learned.

Atlas, who spoke with the president on Monday, joined the administration in August, and was considered a Special Government Employee (SGE), serving a 130-day detail. Atlas’ role is set to expire this week.

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Fox News exclusively obtained Atlas’s resignation letter Monday, which was dated Dec. 1. In it, Atlas touted the Trump administration’s work on the coronavirus pandemic, while wishing “all the best” to the incoming Biden administration.

“I am writing to resign from my position as Special Advisor to the President of the United States,” Atlas said, thanking him for “the honor and privilege to serve on behalf of the American people.”

“I worked hard with a singular focus—to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic,” Atlas wrote, adding that he “always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence.”

“As time went on, like all scientists and health policy scholars, I learned new information and synthesized the latest data from around the world, all in an effort to provide you with the best information to serve the greater public good,” Atlas wrote. “But, perhaps more than anything, my advice was always focused on minimizing all the harms from both the pandemic and the structural policies themselves, especially to the working class and the poor.”

Atlas, who had been criticized throughout his tenure for calling for a reopening, and saying that lockdowns are “extremely harmful” to Americans, said that “although some may disagree with those recommendations, it is the free exchange of ideas that lead to scientific truths, which are the very foundation of a civilized society.”

“Indeed, I cannot think of a time where safeguarding science and the scientific debate is more urgent,” Atlas said.

Atlas went on to tout his work at the White House, and his work with “several selfless colleagues in designing specific policies to heighten protection of the vulnerable while safely reopening schools and society.”

Atlas pointed to their efforts in increasing and prioritizing “extra personal protective equipment and tens of millions of extra tests to nursing and assisted living facilities,” as well as implementing “more frequent monitoring updates using clinical guidelines to intensify testing,” and instituting outreach to independent seniors in communities.

“We also successfully designed rational guidelines for safely opening schools, a strategic use of the newly developed testing program, and a national stockpile of drugs for future crises,” Atlas wrote.

Shifting to lockdowns he has warned against throughout his tenure, Atlas said they “identified and illuminated early on the harms of prolonged lockdowns, including that they create massive physical health losses and psychological distress, destroy families and damage our children.”

“And more and more, the relatively low risk to children of serious harms from the infection, the less frequent spread from children, the presence of immunologic protection beyond that shown by antibody testing, and the severe harms from closing schools and society are all being acknowledged,” Atlas added.

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Atlas also touted Operation Warp Speed, and the team that “delivered on our promised timelines for new drugs and vaccines.”

“I congratulate you for your vision, and also congratulate the many who did the exemplory work—we know who they are, even though their names are not those familiar to the public,” Atlas wrote.

Atlas went on to wish the best to the incoming Biden Administration.

“I sincerely wish the new team all the best as they guide the nation through these trying, polarized times,” Atlas wrote. “With the emerging treatments and vaccines, I remain highly optimistic that America will thrive once again and overcome the adversity of the pandemic and all that it has entailed.”

Atlas, during his tenure, sparred with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Over the summer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield reportedly criticized Atlas, claiming that “everything he says is false.”

Atlas defended his record and his expertise, and maintained that all of his advice to the president was based on the “current science.”

“I was asked to be an adviser on the coronavirus pandemic to the president of the United States and I was asked to do that because I have a 25-year career at top, elite medical centers, as a doctor and in patient care,” Atlas told Fox News this summer. “I also have a 15-year career in public policy, working on health care policy and integrating my medical knowledge in policy.”

Atlas added that before his arrival to the White House this summer, “that expertise had not been present.”

“I am here because I understand how to translate complex medical science into plain English for the president of the United States and for everyone else in the White House, and derive appropriate public policy from that information,” Atlas said at the time, adding that there is a “false belief” that one “has to be a public health official to understand the facts about the pandemic.”

“The way I advise the president is perfectly consistent with the most appropriate strategy for dealing with this pandemic,” he said. “One, target diligent protection of the high risk and vulnerable populations, and two, open up schools and society.”

Meanwhile, as for a coronavirus vaccine, the Trump administration said deliveries of the vaccine will begin as early as this week, and would be available first for front-line workers, medical personnel and senior citizens.

The president, on Thanksgiving, argued that his opponent, President-elect Joe Biden, should not be given credit for the vaccines, which he referred to as a “medical miracle” before repeating claims of voting irregularities in the 2020 election.

“Joe Biden failed with the swine flu, H1N1, totally failed with the swine flu,” Trump said. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before and we got that approved and through and nobody’s ever seen anything like it.” 

Trump’s comments came ahead of a Dec. 10 meeting, where regulators at the Food and Drug Administration will review Pfizer’s request for an emergency use authorization for its vaccine developed with BioNTech. 

The latest trial data for Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, unveiled earlier this month, showed it was 90% effective.

In addition, Moderna said its vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19. AstraZeneca also reported preliminary results that showed its vaccine efficacy ranged from 62% to 90%, depending on the dosage amount given to participants.

According to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the vaccines will be “shipped” within 24 hours of FDA approval and then it would be up to “nursing homes, hospitals, and pharmacies to get that dispensed.” 

“It really could be within days of FDA approval we’ll start seeing vaccines in people’s arms which is frankly incredible,” Azar said Monday.

The United States has reported more than 13.5 million cases of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, and more than 267,000 deaths.

Georgia‘s top election official says he is opening an investigation into whether third-party groups are trying to register people from other states to illegally vote in Georgia’s twin Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections, when the GOP’s majority in the chamber is at stake.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced to reporters on Monday that “we have opened an investigation into a group called America Votes, who is sending absentee ballot applications to people at addresses where they have not lived since 1994.”

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Raffensperger, a Republican, also said his investigators are looking into “Vote Forward, who attempted to register a dead Alabama voter, a woman, to vote here in Georgia.” He also spotlighted “The New Georgia Project, who sent voter registration applications to New York City.”

The secretary of state also pinpointed “Operation New Voter Registration Georgia, who is telling college students in Georgia that they can change their residency to Georgia and then change it back after the election.”

Raffensperger emphasized that “voting in Georgia when you’re not a resident of Georgia is a felony. And encouraging college students to commit felonies without regard for what it might mean for them is despicable. These third-party groups have a responsibility not to encourage illegal voting. If they do so, they will be held responsible.”

Raffensperger’s office also has 23 investigators working on 250 open investigations into “credible claims of illegal voting” and election law violations, he said.

Gabriel Sterling, the election official who manages Georgia’s voting system, told reporters that “this is new information, these outside groups attempting to register people illegally potentially, in other states.”

Sterling said that these third-party groups appear to be “literally saying ‘hey, it’s OK to commit a felony.’”

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And Raffensperger emphasized that “this office will continue to take steps to protect the voting rights of the legally registered Georgians of this state, Republican, Democrat, independent, and whatever party you may be a member of.”

The current balance of power for the next Senate coming out of this month’s elections is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. That means Democrats must win both of Georgia’s runoff elections to make it a 50-50 Senate. If that occurs, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote, giving her party a razor-thin majority in the chamber.

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In Georgia, where state law dictates a runoff if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote, GOP Sen. David Perdue narrowly missed avoiding a runoff, winning 49.75% of the vote. Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff trails by roughly 87,000 votes.

In the other race, appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler captured nearly 26% of the vote in a whopping 20-candidate special election to fill the final two years of the term of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson. The Democratic candidate in the runoff, Rev. Raphael Warnock, won nearly 33% of the vote in the first round.

The New York Times was accused of “carrying water for Iran” over the weekend for echoing the nation’s talking point that its “nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes” after the leader of Tehran’s military nuclear program was killed in a shooting.

State TV on Friday cited sources confirming the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was dubbed the leader of Tehran’s military nuclear program until it was ended in the early 2000s.

“Iranian officials, who have always maintained that their nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes, not weapons, expressed fury and vowed revenge over the assassination, calling it an act of terrorism and warmongering,” the New York Times World tweeted from its verified account to accompany an article headlined “Gunmen Assassinate Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist in Ambush, Provoking New Crisis.”

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The tweet was quickly ridiculed, and human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky responded, “NY Times, ‘Paper of Record’ for … the #Iran regime.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. — who caused chaos inside the paper earlier this year when he penned an op-ed that offended liberals — slammed the Times as propaganda.

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“What was once the self-styled newspaper of record is now just a well-funded left-wing blog, relentlessly hostile to America and Israel, and always ready to propagandize for their enemies,” Cotton wrote.

Journalist Shiri Moshe added, “Iranian officials also maintain that their regime doesn’t subjugate women or massacre political dissidents — is the NYT going to prominently and uncritically feature those lies in their coverage as well?”

Many others condemned the Times for the tweet:

Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s so-called “Amad,” or “Hope,” program, which Israel and the West described as a military operation to build a nuke. The U.N. atomic agency said the program ended in the early 2000s.

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Fakhrizadeh’s death will be another major blow to the Tehran regime, which has struggled amid “maximum pressure” from the Trump administration and saw the U.S. leave the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and impose waves of sanctions on the Islamic dictatorship.

In January, the U.S. took out Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a strike in what the Trump administration described as an act of self-defense against an “imminent” attack.

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report

Election officials in Georgia’s Fulton County told a local news outlet Sunday that a newly purchased Dominion Voting Systems mobile server crashed that delayed the state’s third recount of the presidential election and technicians from the company “have been dispatched to resolve the issue.”

11Alive.com reported that the Georgia Secretary of State’s office is aware of the efforts to “resolve the problem.”

The report indicated that about 88% of the ballots in the state’s largest county have been counted and the recount will resume again on Monday. The deadline to complete the recount is Dec. 2.  

Joe Biden defeated President Trump by about 13,000 votes in the Peach State, but Trump and his legal team have challenged the results.

Trump has expressed frustration with state leaders over how both the election and vote count were handled and has been vocal in his criticism of top Republicans in the state.

Trump told Fox News on Sunday that Gov. Brian Kemp has done “absolutely nothing” to question the results and has also called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger an “enemy of the people” for allowing what he called a “fraudulent system” to persist in the state.

Raffensperger certified the election result on Nov. 20, and Kemp signed off on it.

WSB-TV pointed to an op-ed that Raffensperger wrote last week where he said the election seemed as though it was “wildly successful” and “smooth.”

“This should be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost — my family voted for him, donated to him, and are now being thrown under the bus by him,” he wrote.

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The 11Alive report said the server that crashed was newly purchased but additional details were not immediately clear. Emails from Fox News to Dominion and Raffensperger were not immediately returned.

Trump and his supporters have insisted that he won the election and it is only due to widespread fraud that Biden was declared the winner. Trump’s critics say he clearly lost and has yet to provide evidence to suggest the contrary. 

Trump said in an interview Sunday that his Department of Justice has been “missing in action.” He also questioned the whereabouts of the FBI.

“You would think if you’re in the FBI or Department of Justice, this is the biggest thing you could be looking at. Where are they? I’ve not seen anything,” he said.

Last week, Michael Steel, a spokesman for Dominion denied claims that vote cast through the company’s systems were at risk of being altered. He said it is physically impossible to alter votes in the system.

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“Look, when a voter votes on a Dominion machine, they fill out a ballot on a touch screen. They are given a printed copy which they then give to a local election official for safekeeping. If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots. and in every case where we’ve looked at — in Georgia, all across the country — the printed ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally,” he said.

Trump’s campaign launched several lawsuits challenging the voting systems and processes in a number of key battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Sidney Powell, a high-powered lawyer who is investigating the election results, retweeted an order by Federal Judge Timothy C. Batten that orders the state to “maintain the status quo” of the voting machines in the state and ruled that these machines cannot be wiped or reset until further notice.

Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer and the Associated Press contributed to this report