Covid researchers destroyed evidence to avoid FOIA

FPI / May 26, 2024

Top researchers who worked on manipulating bat coronaviruses to better-infect humans conspired to delete email evidence of their communications surrounding the outbreak of Covid, according to new released emails by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The emails focus on top NIH adviser Dr. David Morens, who solicited help from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office to dodge records requests.

"Evidence in possession of the Select Subcommittee suggests that Dr. Morens, while employed by NIAID and NIH acted as an agent on behalf of a federal grantee, EcoHealth," the subcommittee said in a press release.

Morens appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on May 22, 2024.

Morens, who is currently on administrative leave, "began assisting Dr. Daszak in how to respond to NIH compliance efforts," the release continues — referring to EcoHealth Alliance boss Peter Daszak, whose organization was suspended this month from receiving federal funds for three years.

"i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d but before the search starts," Morens wrote in a Feb. 24, 2021 email to an unknown recipient, adding "Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail."

In another email, Morens claims that "With the help of our IT folks, I went over the whole computer and phone situation... Basically, my gmail is safe from FOIA."

"Please pass this on to Peter and I ask you both that NOTHING gets sent to me except to my gmail."

Morens also emailed Daszak, advising him: "We are all smart enough to know never to have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn't put them in emails and if we found them we'd delete them."

In an email to Peter Hotez, Morens writes: "The email somehow fell into the hands of the Congressman, probably via FOIA of someone who didn't delete it, as I did (delete all of Peter's emails and others relating to origin) when the shit started hitting the fan."

Morens also joked about getting a kickback from EcoHealth, to which Daszak replied jokingly: "of course there's a kickback. It starts with 5 more years of FoIA requests ... I just hope it doesn't culminate in 5 years in Federal jail, or even Chinese 're-education camp'..."

The New York Post cited Diane Cutler, an ex-investigator for the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, as saying that Morens "has violated the ethical standards of conduct for executive branch employees and has potentially violated criminal law."

Subcommittee chairman Brad Wenstrup, Ohio Republican, said in his opening remarks: “The information contained in these 30,000 pages of emails are deeply concerning, and in my opinion reflects poorly upon Dr. Morens and the Office of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease under Dr. Fauci’s leadership and the NIH under Dr. Francis Collins. Dr. Fauci’s NIAID was unfortunately less pristine than so many, including the media, would have had us all believe.”

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