NEW: Congress Demands NIH Emails That May Expose Fauci’s Efforts To Silence Lab Leak Theory

The chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), wants answers from a senior adviser to Dr. Fauci, David Morens, who implied that the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was trying to cover up for and discredit the lab leak theory of the COVID-19 virus’s origins according to Just the News. To that end, chairman Wenstrup has asked Morens to turn over documents and communication from his personal email and cellphone given that there is information that the senior adviser to the then director has been intentionally seeking to avoid  public disclosure by using non-government communications.

The information about the cover up campaign is allegedly contained within Morens’s emails and the committee wants a transcribed interview with the witness by August 2nd. A cache of emails by Morens were already published by the Intercept and obtained by the committee. In those emails damning phrases like “As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’D [subject to public disclosure as per the Freedom of Information Act] constantly”  and “I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times” appear.

In an email exchange with a Bloomberg journalist, Morens admits that “[f]or many months, I have not been approved to talk about “origins” on the record. But today, to my total surprise, my boss Tony [Dr. Fauci] actually ASKED me to speak to…[the press] on record about origins….[still] Tony doesn’t want his fingerprints on origin stories.”

Previously disclosed information establishes that Dr. Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins contributed in an under the table way to a 2020 paper that dismissed the lab leak theory as a viable possibility. Fauci later cited this same paper during a press conference to dismiss the same theory.

Morens also suggested over an email exchange dating to 2021 that publications that went with the lab leak theory ought to be sued for slander. Chairman Wenstrup attacked Morens for giving “the appearance of a government official encouraging litigation against the press for reporting that does not follow public health bureaucrats’ pre-conceived narrative and is unacceptable.” Wenstrup observed that all these interactions “raise serious concerns about your [Morens’s] objectivity while stationed” as Fauci’s assistant and that the subcommittee will inquire “whether you made or influenced any funding decisions based on your personal motives or biases towards scientists.”

Chairman Wenstrup summarized his concerns with how Morens and others acted as well as professed to want to know the core motive of why these scientists behaved as they did on Fox News.

“Tony doesn't want his fingerprints on origin stories.”

…let that sink in. pic.twitter.com/jm6dCCParH

— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) July 1, 2023