Longtime senior advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been accused of deleting federal records by Republican lawmakers, has been subpoenaed by a House panel investigating the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Dr. David Morens, recipient of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic subpoena Fridayserved as Fauci’s senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1998 until the former NIAID chief’s retirement late last year.
The GOP-led panel alleges Morens “likely used his personal email to delete original COVID-19 documents and evade [Freedom of Information Act] the law.”
The subpoena against Morens came after the National Institutes of Health failed to respond to a request for information issued by the panel last month, and then produced a “lackluster” amount of documentation — “only two pages” — responsive to a separate October request, according to the chairman of the COVID subcommittee. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).
Dr. David Morens served as Fauci’s senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1998 until the former NIAID chief’s retirement late last year. AFP via Getty Images
“These obstacles will not be tolerated,” Wenstrup warned in a letter informing NIH Acting Director Lawrence Tabak of the subpoena issued to Morens, who called the allegations against NIAID employees “deeply troubling.”
“Dr. Morens’ documents are potentially needed to inform this investigation, including but not limited to his knowledge of information regarding the origins of COVID-19,” the letter continued.
Wenstrup argued that documents potentially deleted from Morens’ personal email account may show efforts by government officials to cover up evidence that the virus that led to the coronavirus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory.
The GOP-led panel alleges Morens “likely used his personal email to delete original COVID-19 documents and evade [Freedom of Information Act] the law.” AP
“Furthermore, these documents may explain efforts from within the government to suppress or otherwise ignore the possibility that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the letter said.
“Therefore it is necessary for the Select Subcommittee to obtain the documents that Dr. Morens provided to the NIH and ensure that all of his related documents have been secured and preserved.”
Wenstrup also demanded NIH Records Officer Anthony Crawley Gibson appear before his panel for interviews later this month.
Emails from Morens suggest that government officials, including Fauci, are not interested in pursuing or discussing the possibility that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese laboratory. AP
In June, the panel on the origins of COVID released an email from Morens in which he suggested that government officials, including Fauci, were not interested in pursuing or discussing the possibility that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese laboratory.
In one exchange, Morens told Bloomberg reporter Jason Gale that the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services prohibited him from “speaking[ing] about [COVID] ‘original’ on the record,” but he was recently given the chance to discuss the matter — as long as he didn’t mention his boss.
“Tony didn’t want his fingerprints on the original story,” Morens said in a July 29, 2021 email.
In another email, Morens told colleagues he would “always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is always FOIA” and that he would “delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
