National Institutes of Health (NIH) top adviser deletes records critical to uncovering the origins of COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci and federal grant recipients who funded gain-of-function research Avoiding transparency in Wuhan, China, which used “secret back channels” to support
Dr. David Morens, a senior NIH adviser, improperly conducted official government business from his personal email account and sought assistance from the NIH’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office to evade records requests about the coronavirus pandemic, according to emails revealed in a House Select Subcommittee memo obtained by The Post on Wednesday.
“[I] What we learned from our FOIA [sic] I want to know how to delete emails after receiving a FOIA. [sic] But before the search begins,” Morens wrote in a Feb. 24, 2021 email. “Additionally, most of his previous emails he sent to Gmail and then deleted.” [sic]. ”
“Please note that nothing will be sent to anyone other than my Gmail. [sic]” he reiterated in a November 18, 2021 email to EcoHealth Alliance Chairman Dr. Peter Daszak. This month, he was among those who was suspended from receiving federal funding for the organization for the next three years. proposed to be deprived on wednesday.
The 35-page memo from the subcommittee majority staff also alleged that Fauci, Morens’ former boss at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), participated in a “conspiracy at the highest levels” at the agency to “cover up” and potentially “destroy the official record regarding the origins of COVID-19.”
“[T]You don’t have to worry about FOIA here. You can also send content in Tony’s private Gmail [sic]Or hand it in at work or home,” Fauci’s adviser wrote in an April 21, 2021 email. “He’s too smart to let his colleagues send anything that could cause problems.”
In an email sent by Morens on June 16, 2020, he said, “We are all smart people who know to never carry smoke bombs. Even if you do, don’t put them in your email. I don’t think there is, and if I find it, I will delete it,” said an email sent by Morens on June 16, 2020. Months after EcoHealth’s Wuhan subsidies were first suspended.
“If I [sic] I had to bet, I [sic] “You would assume that beneath Tony’s macho ‘I’m not worried’ response, he was genuinely worried,” Morens also wrote in an April 22, 2021 email. I wrote about Fauci’s personal concerns about ecohealth subsidies.
Astonishingly, the NIH advisor may also have received “kickbacks” for his support of the disgraced Manhattan-based EcoHealth Alliance, which funded experiments on novel bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 2014-2021.
Many of the emails between Morens and Daszak provide EcoHealth with “inside information” about the status of a more than $4 million NIH grant project titled “Understanding the Risks of Emerging Bat Coronaviruses.” gave privileges.
The project was put on hold during the pandemic, then resumed in 2023, but violated the terms of the NIH grant by conducting dangerous gain-of-function experiments that made SARS-like viruses 10,000 times more infectious.
NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak finally acknowledged in Congressional testimony last week that the experiment had taken place after more than four years of denials.
Professor Tabak denied that gain-of-function research led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2, but another EcoHealth grant proposal has drawn scrutiny over its similarities to COVID-19. There is.
Daszak has downplayed the role of Chinese researchers in engineering the virus to sub-biosafety standards, but he also said at a House COVID Committee hearing earlier this month that Chinese researchers had been working on the virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic began. It revealed that it had not received the sequence of the virus.
Dr. Robert Redfield, a former FBI, Department of Energy, Cabinet member and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the most likely explanation for the coronavirus infection was that it leaked from a lab in Wuhan.
Nevertheless, in their email exchanges, Mr. Morens and Mr. Daszak said that they had discussed the lab leak theory, including with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). He derided his supporters as “lunatics” and conspiracy theorists.
Other emails show Morens discussing his drinking habits and making misogynistic remarks.
“Drinks are always good, and best when they’re served by a blonde nympho woman. In fact, at my age I’d choose a brunette, even with a bright red head. No hair at all. ” he confessed to Daszak in a December 11, 2020 email.
In another video, he and Daszak are seen mocking something Paul told them.get messed up” said a caller to the town hall event.
“While we do not condone this despicable level of public discourse, Paul has been on the offensive for months,” Daszak said of Paul, who fought with Fauci over funding to Wuhan during a high-profile hearing. After that, I found myself strangely energized by it.”
“He clearly doesn’t know the F*%$. [sic] “I failed anatomy, and I failed every other subject in medical school,” Morens answered, referring to Paul’s work as an ophthalmologist.
Morens, who worked for Mr. Fauci from 1998 to 2022, produced more than 30,000 pages of emails and other documents to the subcommittee in response to subpoenas, and twice by committee members. I am being interviewed.
“The evidence presented throughout this memorandum establishes that Dr. Morens likely gave false testimony to the Select Subcommittee,” the majority staff memo concludes.
Morens is scheduled to testify later Wednesday about his backchannel boast that he destroyed a “smoking gun” email about the COVID-19 pandemic, which one former grant fraud investigator told the newspaper was “blatant and deliberate misconduct.”
“He violates standards of ethical conduct for executive branch employees and may violate criminal law,” said Diane Cutler, a former investigator with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.
The NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
