Advertisement
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s (pictured) top aide admitted he skirted federal laws in order to cover up correspondence about COVID origins. Now, House Republicans are ramping up their investigation about his ‘intentional’ efforts to avoid transparency about coronavirus origins discussions.
Dr. David Morens (pictured), a top advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic, testified last week before Congress that used a personal email account to discuss work-related topics. According to his own correspondence, he did this in order to avoid federal transparency requirements under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Subpoenaed emails obtained by Republicans show that Morens said he ‘learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear.’
And just how that ‘foia lady’ Margaret Moore at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) helped Morens is now the subject of a probe by House Republicans. The majority of emails were between Morens and defamed coronavirus researcher Dr. Peter Daszak (pictured left), who he considered to be a ‘best friend.’ Morens has claimed he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong and said he wasn’t aware he was deleting federal records or that using his personal email to conduct business-related matters was improper.
But Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, is now requesting briefings with the National Archives and NIH to discuss the extent of Morens’ cover-up scheme. ‘This evidence taken together suggests a conspiracy at the highest levels of NIH and NIAID to avoid public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic,’ Wenstrup wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to NIH Director Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli.
‘If what appears in these documents is true, this is an apparent attack on public trust and must be met with swift enforcement and consequences for those involved. We write to you to request a staff level briefing no later than June 4, 2024, regarding NIH’s document retention, transparency, FOIA, and personal e-mail policies,’ the letter stated.
In a letter also sent Tuesday to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan, Wenstrup similarly requested a briefing on the Archive’s ‘investigation into Morens’s use of a personal e-mail to avoid transparency, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and potential wrongful disposition of official records.’ Notably, the deadlines for the briefings comes one day after Fauci is slated to testify before the committee on June 3.
In addition to requesting briefings from the National Archives and 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 regarding COVID-19 and its origins. ‘This evasion tactic ensures that when the NIH searches its email server for key words that are responsive to a FOIA request, Mr. Folkers’s emails that contain the misspelled key word are not identified or produced as a responsive document,’ Wenstrup wrote in a press release Tuesday.
One of the suspect typos is regarding Daszak’s non-profit 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 later escaped from. ‘In one email produced to the Select Subcommittee through a subpoena, Mr. Folkers appears to have purposefully misspelled ‘EcoHealth’ as ‘Ec~Health,’ the chairman 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 probed by the Select Subcommittee — raise serious concerns that the NIH’s investigation missed important information,’ the statement continued.
These latest developments come in the wake of Morens disastrous testimony before the COVID-19 committee on May 22. The former Fauci aide was forced to apologize repeatedly misogynistic comments made in subpoenaed emails and for the reason he was actually testifying to in the first place – deleting those emails to cover up a trail of communications between himself and Daszak. EcoHealth’s research is at the center of the committee’s probe into the origins of the virus, as are key allies of Daszak, Morens and Fauci himself.
Astonishingly, Morens also admitted to helping Daszak apply for federal funding and even asked him for a ‘kickback’ after the coronavirus researcher received $7.5 million from the agency Morens oversees, according to emails revealed by the committee. ‘Do i get a kickback????? Too much fooking money! DO you deserve it all? Lets discuss,’ Morens sent Daszak in an email. ‘Of course there’s a kick-back,’ Daszak responded in an email revealed Wednesday. When pressed on the exchange by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., last week, Morens said he was just joking. ‘Um, that’s typical black humor between people like Peter and me,’ Morens responded. Morens testified he had not received any compensation from EcoHealth or Daszak. Though several lawmakers on the committee appeared to not believe him.
Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .