New evidence has surfaced against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former top federal health official, which may lead to his indictment. Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has disclosed that there are now sufficient grounds to prosecute Fauci, based on the congressional testimony of his former top aide.
During a hearing before a House select subcommittee on Wednesday, Dr. David Morens, who previously worked closely with Fauci as his aide at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provided testimony. The evidence presented indicates that both Fauci and Morens engaged in the destruction of evidence and evaded a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
“The most important knowledge that we learned is that [Dr.] David Morens, 20-year assistant to Fauci, was purposely evading FOIA, which is the law,” Paul said. More than that, he was also destroying evidence. He was taking emails and destroying them,” Paul said of Morens. “When he was asked about it, he said he didn’t know emails were federal records. Nobody is that stupid.”
Paul added later, referring to Fauci and his staff: “If Fauci ordered you to destroy these records, I think he could be indicted.”
Morens, a former senior adviser to Fauci at the NIAID, provided testimony to the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The select committee has alleged that Morens impeded the House investigation into the origin of COVID-19, deleted relevant federal records, and disclosed nonpublic information regarding the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in New York.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced its decision to reduce funding to EcoHealth Alliance. Critics of Fauci have claimed that the NIH utilized EcoHealth to finance “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, which is suspected to have contributed to the transmission of COVID-19.
The term “gain of function” refers to a risky process of enhancing the virulence or transmissibility of a pathogen for the purpose of studying its response. Regarding this matter, Morens expressed his apologies during the pandemic subcommittee hearing. He stated that he was unaware that using personal email for work-related matters violated the NIH’s policy on record retention.
“I shouldn’t have done that. That’s wrong,” he told the House panel.
James Comer (R-KY) asked: “Did you ever delete any official records?”
Morens replied: “We are at the issue of defining what’s a federal record.
“I deleted a lot of emails. I do it every day.”
The subcommittee report indicates that Morens compromised NIH operations by secretly sharing confidential information with Daszak at his EcoHealth Alliance.
“He said, ‘Well, I also think Tony has deleted his as well,’” Paul said.
“So he basically, in his email, implicated Tony [Fauci] for destroying records as well.”
