Republicans have escalated their investigation into the origins of COVID-19 by sending a subpoena to a former top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Last week, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic revealed that Dr. David Morens – Fauci’s top aide at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – reportedly used his personal Gmail account to discuss the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to circumvent federal transparency laws. .
At the time, Morens’ official work email would have been subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that could have made his daily communications public.
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said Morens used Gmail to “deliberately (undermine) federal transparency laws to shield discussions about the origins of COVID-19.”
Now Wenstrup has sent a subpoena to Morens demanding he turn over documents from his personal email account about COVID-19, coronavirus grant funding and his communications with Fauci and former NIH director Francis Collins, and other top health officials.
A whistleblower provided evidence to Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, alleging that Dr. David Morens used his personal Gmail account to communicate about the COVID-19 pandemic. Morens’ official work email is subject to Freedom of Information Act requests
Morens served as a senior advisor to former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci, and according to his LinkedIn account, he still works there in the same capacity
The committee’s subpeonad documents regarding Morens’ communications with former NIH Director Francis Collins (left) and former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci (right)
Wenstrup asks that the material be sent by April 30.
The Ohio Republican previously said a whistleblower provided him with the material showing Morens used his personal email.
These emails provided by whistleblowers show that Morens uses a ‘@gmail.com’ account to correspond with Dr. Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization, on a government research grant.
In a series of documents released by EcoHealth last week, Daszak emailed Morens saying “from now on we will communicate with you via Gmail,” before later mentioning that he had “15,000 samples in freezers in Wuhan,” that could help them ‘do the full job’. genomes of 700+ (coronaviruses).”
Another email shows Morens appearing to expose Fauci’s efforts to provide “damage control” for EcoHealth.
“Tony is fully aware of it now, I think, and I’m told he’s involved in some form of harm reduction,” Morens told Daszak.
Republicans previously revealed that EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), submitted a proposal to federal officials seeking funding to create a novel coronavirus in 2018.
And Wenstrup has accused EcoHealth of using taxpayer money “to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
“These emails raise serious concerns that federal health officials may be covering up the origins of the pandemic,” Wenstrup previously said.
In the email above, Daszak Morens talks about 15,000 samples in a laboratory in Wuhan that could help them map the genomes of more than 700 coronaviruses
The subject line of one of the messages between EcoHealth’s Morens and Daszak’s personal email includes a reference to a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant proposal that provided $661,980 for a 2019 project titled “Understanding the Risk or Bat Coronavirus Emergence’.
Another subject line from his personal email reads “COVID-19 update (312): China, SARS-CoV2 origin, animal reservoir, WHO mission,” indicating the two discussed the origins of the disease.
A third email from Morens had a subject line that referred to “our suspended R01,” possibly indicating that funding for the bat coronavirus research project was halted at some point.
However, during his transcribed interview with the Select Subcommittee in January, Morens denied removing any federal data on the origins of COVID-19, the lawmaker said.
Morens also previously admitted to the committee in a closed interview that “I will remove anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.”
“I always try to communicate via Gmail because my NIH email is constantly being hacked,” Morens told the committee at the time.
Morens’ admission that he is deliberately hiding his communications prompted Wenstrup to send a message letter at Boston University Professor Dr. Gerald Keusch, who was mentioned in the emails.
Wenstrup requests the production of all documents and communications relating to Keusch’s correspondence with Dr. Morens, according to the committee.
That includes any emails with “other individuals and entities with knowledge of and access to material regarding the origins of COVID-19.”
“This letter continues our investigation into the possible cover-up of information about the origins of COVID-19 by U.S. public health authorities,” Wenstrup wrote.
The Republican requested that Keusch hand over his communications with a number of federal officials by April 25.
Daszak (left) and Fauci (right) were likely aware of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s desire to create a new coronavirus as early as 2018, Republicans claim
EcoHealth, run by Daszak, sought federal funding for gain-of-function research in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute
Earlier this week, Senator Rand Paul announced that at least 15 government agencies, including NIAID and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), had information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s proposal.
And despite these officials knowing that EcoHealth, the Wuhan Institute, and NIAID wanted to create a disease similar to COVID-19, they did not reveal the labs’ intentions to the public.
The waters are further muddied by Paul’s accusations that Fauci could have been involved in influencing decisions surrounding the origins of COVID-19, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still says likely came from bats and not from a Chinese laboratory.
“We also have stories, rumors and innuendo that Fauci was a frequent visitor to the CIA off the books.”
Paul says Fauci’s secret travels are important because “the CIA still officially says (COVID-19 is) probably from animals.”
Paul pointed out that the CIA disagrees with the findings of the Department of Energy and the FBI, which say the pandemic likely resulted from a leak at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
And while an initial CIA assessment found the lab leak theory likely, senior officials within the agency have dismissed their findings.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced that his investigation into the origins of COVID-19 has revealed that at least 15 government agencies were aware of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s efforts to create a new strain of coronavirus
That means that, according to Paul, Fauci was almost certainly aware of the Chinese labs’ desire to create a new coronavirus, since NIAID was a partner on the proposal.
“So in January and February of 2020, instead of Anthony Fauci standing up and saying, ‘Oh, wow, they informed us about this. It looks like they finally did what they told us about. “Instead of saying that, he instructed people to say the opposite,” Paul told DailyMail.com.
“It makes me think there really is something they’re hiding.”
Dr. Peter Daszak, meanwhile, will testify publicly before the House of Representatives on May 1.
EcoHealth and Dr. Morens did not return a request for comment.