The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is pressing the NIH over its practices handling public records requests after an investigation gathered emails that appear to show potential mishandling of documents.
In a letter sent to NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli on Tuesday, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) zeroed in on a series of emails sent last year by NIH officials that appear to show officials attempting to avoid complying with public records requests.
The subcommittee, helmed by Wenstrup, issued a subpoena last month for emails sent by David Morens, senior scientific advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The committee was concerned that he used his personal email to avoid transparency and that he potentially deleted records having to do with the origins of Covid-19.
Wenstrup asks NIH to provide the committee with a staff-level briefing by no later than next Tuesday to glean information on the agency’s policies around document retention, transparency, FOIA and personal emails. The letter also states the committee “reserves the right” to request transcribed interviews with NIH staff.
“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,” Wenstrup wrote.
HHS told Endpoints News that it has received the letter and will respond directly to Wenstrup, but declined to comment further.
The letter includes an email that Morens sent to EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak, who has been a main target in the Covid-19 lab-leak theory, appearing to give him forewarning of FOIA requests that could potentially be damaging.
“I hope the NIH can help reduce the amount that comes out – some of the emails between us all via your NIH account were a bit embarrassing re. criticizing the lab leakers and will be reported as showing we’re ‘conspiring’ together in some way … ” Daszak wrote.
The letter also contains an email Morens sent from his personal account disclosing that he had learned a way to erase FOIAed emails.
“[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,” he wrote.
The letter also includes several emails in which NIH staff appear to slightly tweak keywords to avoid having them show up in keyword searches in FOIAs, including one referring to “Ec~health.”
In one email from Greg Folkers, former chief of staff to NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, the subject line reads “anders$n,” referring to virologist Kristian Andersen, who was in contact with Fauci.
“He has been targeted and harassed pretty heavily since Fauci’s emails were released,” the email reads.