Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s top adviser admitted that he skirted federal laws to cover up correspondence about the origins of COVID.
Now, House Republicans are stepping up their investigation into his “intentional” efforts to prevent transparency about discussions about the origins of the coronavirus.
Dr. David Morens, a top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic, testified last week before Congress that he used a personal email account to discuss work-related issues.
According to his own correspondence, he did this to avoid federal transparency requirements under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Subpoena emails obtained by Republicans show that Morens said she “learned from our foia lady how to make emails disappear.”
And how that ‘foia lady’ Margaret Moore of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) helped Morens is now the subject of an investigation by House Republicans.
Dr. David Morens apologized to lawmakers for intentionally deleting his emails about COVID-19 while serving as a top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci and for making misogynistic comments about former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky during a hearing in Congress on May 22, 2024.
Most of the emails were between Morens and maligned coronavirus researcher Dr. Peter Daszak, whom he considered his “best friend.”
Morens claimed he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong and said he didn’t know he was deleting federal records or that using his personal email to conduct business-related matters was inappropriate.
But Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, is now requesting briefings with the National Archives and the NIH to discuss the scope of Morens’ cover-up scheme.
“Taken together, this evidence suggests a conspiracy at the highest levels of the NIH and NIAID to prevent public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic,” Wenstrup wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to the director of the NIH, Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli.
“If what appears in these documents is true, this is an apparent attack on the public trust and must be met with swift enforcement and consequences for those involved.”
“We are writing to request a staff-level briefing no later than June 4, 2024, on NIH’s document retention, transparency, FOIA, and personal email policies,” the letter said.
In a letter also sent Tuesday to United States Archivist Colleen Shogan, Wenstrup also requested a briefing on the Archive’s “investigation into Morens’ use of a personal email to prevent transparency, including the Act of Freedom of Information (FOIA), and possible improper disposal of official records.’
Notably, the deadline for briefings comes one day after Fauci testifies before the committee on June 3.
In addition to requesting reports from the National Archives and the NIH, Wenstrup revealed that Fauci’s former chief of staff, Greg Folkers, also used tactics to evade FOIA requests by intentionally misspelling words in his communications about COVID-19 and its origins.
Wenstrup expressed concern about a conspiracy to cover up the origins of COVID-19 at the “highest levels of NIH and NIAID”
Morens boasted to Daszak using his personal email account that he had learned how to make emails disappear. Notably, he used his official NIH signature at the bottom.
Morens suggested to Daszak that he could send information to Fauci’s personal email or deliver it personally to avoid transparency laws.
Morens claimed that he learned how to avoid FOIA scrutiny from Margaret Moore, who previously worked at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Daszak received millions in U.S. federal funding to conduct research at the WIV, and Morens later said in emails that Fauci and his NIH colleagues would “protect” him.
“This evasion tactic ensures that when the NIH searches its email server for keywords that respond to a FOIA request, emails from Mr. Folkers containing the misspelled keyword are not identified or produced as a response document,” Wenstrup wrote in a press release. launch on Tuesday.
One of the suspected typos involves Daszak’s nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which was awarded $7.5 million in federal funding to conduct coronavirus and related research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (WIV), where some believe the virus was manufactured and then escaped.
“In an email sent to the Select Subcommittee via subpoena, Mr. Folkers appears to have purposely misspelled ‘EcoHealth’ as ’Ec~Health,'” the chair wrote.
‘Although the NIH claims it conducted a thorough investigation into Dr. Morens, these evasive tactics, along with previously uncovered evidence that Dr. Morens began using a Proton Mail account after his Gmail was investigated by the Select Subcommittee raised serious concerns that the NIH “investigation omitted important information,” the statement continued.
These latest developments come in the wake of Moren’s disastrous testimony before the COVID-19 committee on May 22.
The former Fauci aide was forced to apologize for repeatedly misogynistic comments made in subpoenaed emails and for the reason he was actually testifying in the first place: deleting those emails to cover up a trail of communications between him and Daszak.
EcoHealth’s research is at the center of the committee’s investigation into the origins of the virus, as are key allies of Daszak, Morens and Fauci himself.
Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance (left) pictured with Dr. Anthony Fauci (right)
Peter Daszak, right, Thea Fischer, left, and other members of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19 arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Surprisingly, Morens also admitted to helping Daszak apply for federal funds and even asked him for a “bribe” after the coronavirus researcher received $7.5 million from the agency Morens oversees, according to emails revealed by the committee.
‘Do I receive a bribe????? Too much fucking money! Do you deserve it all? Let’s discuss,” Morens sent Daszak in an email.
“Of course there is a backlash,” Daszak responded in an email revealed Wednesday.
When Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., pressed him about the exchange last week, Morens said he was just joking.
“Hey, that’s typical dark humor between people like Peter and me,” Morens responded.
Morens testified that he had not received any compensation from EcoHealth or Daszak.
Although several legislators on the committee seemed not to believe him.
