A former top health official who helped lead the state's initial COVID-19 response has asked a judge to force the health commissioner, the attorney general and Gov. Phil Murphy's chief of staff to explain who ordered a "secret criminal investigation" into him after he was fired.

Nearly two years after Christopher Neuwirth filed a whistleblower lawsuit, his attorneys said the administration has refused to say who was behind a "retaliatory" investigation and "made clear they will not answer the questions."

"Enough is enough and the court's intervention is now needed," Chris Eibeler, an attorney for Neuwirth, said in a motion filed Thursday in Superior Court in Mercer County.

The source of the investigation, conducted by the Attorney General's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, is one piece of a broader puzzle concerning Neuwirth's firing in May 2020.

He contends the administration retaliated against him for refusing to conduct a COVID-19 test on a relative of George Helmy, the governor's chief of staff, when supplies were rare. In news reports, anonymous sources "within the governor’s office and/or the state" said Neuwirth was fired for holding an unapproved outside job.

Murphy and then-chief counsel Matt Platkin — now the acting attorney general — seemed to confirm those reports in public by speaking generally about the rules for outside employment.

Eibeler has said Neuwirth had permission to work a second job, as a consultant for the firm Margolis Healy, and...

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