House Republicans on Tuesday accused officials at the National Institutes of Health of orchestrating a “conspiracy at the highest levels” at the institute to hide public records about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, and lawmakers promised to expand an investigation that uncovered emails in which top health officials openly talked about trying to circumvent federal records laws.
The allegations, which came just days before a House committee is set to publicly question Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a former top NIH official, represent one aspect of an increasing push by lawmakers to link the U.S. research group and one of the nation's leading medical research institutions to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The investigation has so far not produced any evidence that U.S. scientists or health officials have any connection to the coronavirus outbreak. But the House Select Subcommittee on COVID-19 released a set of private emails that suggest at least some NIH officials tried to circumvent public records laws by deleting messages in the face of investigations into the pandemic.
Emails suggest that even NIH officials tasked with turning over records under the Freedom of Information Act may have helped colleagues evade their obligations under the law, known as the Freedom of Information Act, which gives the public the right to obtain copies of federal records.
“I was instructed by the FOIA lady here on how to erase emails after a FOIA request and before the search begins so I think we're all safe,” Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Fauci, wrote in February 2021. Included in that email exchange were scientist and former NIH official Dr. Gerald Keuch and Peter Daszak, president of the virus-hunting nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, whose work with Chinese scientists has come under scrutiny from lawmakers.
“Furthermore, I sent most of my previous emails to Gmail and then deleted them,” Dr. Morens added, referring to his Gmail account.
In another email about an editorial he helped write in July 2020, Dr. Morens reassured a collaborator that sending memos about sensitive government grants to his official email account “should be protected from future FOIAs” because he “had spoken to FOIA officials.” He added, “Don't ask me how…”
The emails were sent from Dr. Morens' personal email account, which was subpoenaed by a House committee last month, with lawmakers accusing Dr. Morens of using the account to avoid disclosing public records.
House Republicans on Tuesday released additional emails implicating a second NIH official in an alleged plot to circumvent public records laws.
In one June 2021 email, Greg Folkers, a former chief of staff to Dr. Fauci, discussed global biosafety practices and referenced an EcoHealth fact sheet. Folkers spelled the group's name as “Ec~Health,” but the lawmakers said the misspelling appeared to be a deliberate attempt to ensure the email would not show up in keyword searches to satisfy Freedom of Information requests related to EcoHealth.
In another email that same month, Volkers spelled the last name of Christian Andersen, a prominent virologist investigating the origins of the pandemic and facing intense scrutiny from lawmakers, as “anders$n.”
Records-keeping policy experts said the comments reflect a lack of transparency across federal agencies, with employees intentionally misspelling words in emails, missing deadlines for responding to records requests and using personal email addresses to evade records laws.
The NIH emails also included allegations that the agency's Federal Records Office was instructing employees on how to break the law, an even more extreme departure from best practices, they argued.
“I've rarely seen an agency FOIA office try to help employees evade or avoid their obligations,” said Michael Morrissey, CEO of MuckRock, a nonprofit news site that helps people submit and track public records requests. If federal records officials were indeed helping their NIH colleagues erase their emails, “that's a real impairment of trust in the entire government,” Morrissey said.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH, did not respond to questions about the department's FOIA office but said in a statement that department policy prohibits employees from using personal email accounts for official business.
“HHS is committed to adhering to the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and complying with federal record-keeping requirements,” the statement said.
“Dr. Morens has a track record of high-quality and significant contributions to science and public service,” Dr. Morens' lawyer, Timothy Berebetz, said in a statement.
At a House committee hearing last week, Dr. Morens, who is on administrative leave from NIH, denied that the agency had instructed him how to circumvent records laws and apologized for some of his emails, saying he had considered them private comments to friends.
Attempts to reach Volkers, who left the NIH last year, were unsuccessful. Dr. Keusch called the House committee's accusations “dangerous to science.” Dr. Daszak denied allegations that he had concealed documents about the pandemic's origins.
The records-keeping revelations grew out of a House committee investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, a hot-button issue that has drawn attention from lawmakers ahead of elections this year. Many of the emails relate to contacts between NIH officials and EcoHealth, whose mismanagement in handling government grants has drawn ire from both parties and led to a proposal last week to ban it from federal funding.
Recently released emails, including some that NIH officials mistakenly believed would not face outside scrutiny, do not add any further weight to the theory that NIH-funded experiments in China led to the COVID-19 outbreak. In some emails, NIH officials and scientists expressed concern that disclosure of the emails and discussion of “political attacks” could be used to their detriment.
In a separate note, Dr. Morens lamented the media's role in promoting the lab-leak virus myth, saying scientists who disagree are “scared to speak out for fear of being attacked themselves.” He has defended the idea that the pandemic began in an illegal wildlife market in China, a theory that scientists say is supported by early cases and the virus' genome.
It remains unclear what is contained in the emails that have not yet been released, including emails from another personal account that Dr. Morens claims he began using after House Republicans began seeking his emails.
The House committee is also investigating Dr Fauci's record-keeping practices, as Dr Morens' emails state he used Dr Fauci's “private Gmail” as a way to circumvent federal records laws.
Scott Amy, general counsel for the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, said the record-keeping practices attributed to the NIH hinder efforts to make the government work better and called the actions “deeply concerning.”
