Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak testified on Thursday that a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci allegedly violated the agency’s public records policy by disposing of certain emails.
Fauci’s senior advisor at the NIH Dr. David Morens allegedly intentionally obstructed the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic’s investigations into the origins of COVID-19 to protect his boss. Tabak told Republican House Oversight Chair James Comer in response to his questioning during a hearing that Morens allegedly violated NIH policy by getting rid of emails following public records requests.
WATCH:
“Dr. David Morens, a senior advisor to Fauci for decades, wrote in an email to Dr. Daszak, ‘I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d, but before the search starts. So I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail.’ Is that consistent with NIH document retention policies?” Comer asked, to which Tabak answered that it’s not.
EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak allegedly misled the federal government to receive grants that funded virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where some suspect the COVID-19 pandemic originated.
“Does the NIH FOIA office teach employees how to avoid transparency?” Comer followed up.
“I certainly hope not,” Tabak said.
Daszak appeared for a transcribed interview in November 2023, where he called Morens a “mentor.”
“He also later wrote Dr. Daszak, ‘We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns and if we did, we wouldn’t put them in emails. And if we found them, ‘we would delete them,” Comer said, again asking if this is consistent with agency policy and Tabak again saying it’s not.
“Finally, emails show that Dr. Morens would share internal questions about upcoming FOIA releases with Dr. Daszak. He would then help Dr. Daszak craft responses to documents being released in these FOIAs. Are those actions consistent with NIH policies?” Comer asked.
Tabak expressed uncertainty about whether these actions took place, but said they would not be consistent with agency policy.
Morens in 2021 sent an email to Daszak, explaining that he tries “to always communicate on gmail because [his] NIH email is FOIA’d constantly,” The Intercept reported.
U.S. Right to Know is one organization that submitted public records requests to the NIH for emails Morens sent regarding content related to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is currently engaged in litigation with the agency for its lack of compliance with a January 2022 request.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday informed EcoHealth Alliance that the federal government would be suspending current grants to the nonprofit and it is striving to block it from getting more grants. HHS cites a series of mistakes EcoHealth Alliance made, including issues with the organization’s monitoring of work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
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