Dr. Fauci must fork over 'secret back channel' communications on COVID origins after his top aide admitted skirting federal transparency laws, demand Republicans

Republicans told Dr. Anthony Fauci to cough up personal emails and phone records Wednesday after his former top aide revealed he had a 'secret back channel' to the pandemic patriarch.

Dr. David Morens, Fauci's former aide, testified last week that he used his personal email for work and had a clandestine way to communicate with Fauci to insulate him from 'stuff that could cause trouble.'

When lawmakers pressed Morens on whether he had sent information related to COVID to Fauci's personal email, the former advisor cagily conceded 'I may have.' 

'This new evidence raises serious concerns about public health officials behaving as if they are unaccountable to the American people they serve,' the committee wrote on X, adding it 'plans to hold Dr. Fauci and his team accountable.' 

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic suggests that the records they requested from Fauci could reveal COVID-related corruption.

Former Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infractions Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci has been instructed to turn over his personal communications about COVID's origins to lawmakers as the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic's probe widens

'According to the communications in our procession, Dr. Morens is not the only official from your time as National Institute for Allergy and Infractions Diseases (NIAID) Director that took affirmative steps to avoid transparency,' the Chairman Brand Wenstrup, R-Ohio, wrote to Fauci in a letter. 

'We are concerned that current and former NAIDID officials have and are continuing to seriously [undermine] public trust by concealing vital information from the American people.'

At the center of the committee's investigation are a trove of emails between Morens and EcoHealth Alliance president Dr. Peter Daszak, along with other communications. 

Daszak - who Morens testified was his 'best friend' - had received millions in federal grant funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to conduct coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). 

When the WIV came under scrutiny for potentially being the epicenter of a lab-leak that began the COVID outbreak, Morens, an employee under NIH, worked to prevent Daszak's reputation from being damaged from Freedom if Information Act (FOIA) requests. 

Morens told Daszak he had a 'secret back channel' to communicate with Fauci 

When pressed by the committee on whether Morens spoke with Fauci on COVID-related matters using personal emails not subject to FOIA requirements, he said 'I may have'

Morens also bragged to Daszak about using his personal email account that he learned how to make emails disappear. He notably used his official NIH signature at the bottom

Morens bragged to Dazak that Fauci is 'too smart' to get caught up in 'stuff that could cause trouble' by communicating on channels other than his official work emails 

'PS, i forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs,' Morens wrote Daszak in April 2021.

'I can either send stuff to Tony [Fauci] on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble,' Morens continued.

His blatant disdain for FOIA requests and suspicious mentions of delivering Fauci potentially untraceable information has raised alarm in lawmakers, fueling their desire to see what the two may have communicated about COVID through their 'secret back channels.' 

Wenstrup requested that Fauci turnover any communications relating to the origins of COVID, the WIV, EcoHealth or congressional oversight of these issues before June 12. 

Fauci is also slated to testify before the committee on June 3, where he will surely be asked about his relationship and communications with Morens. 

In other emails sent by the Fauci aide to Daszak, Morens explicitly states that another NIH employee in charge of processing FOIA requests helped him to avoid the public transparency laws.  

Morens said he 'learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear.' 

Morens admitted to deleting emails and using personal accounts to communicate on official NIH work-related matters during a congressional hearing on May 22

House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, demanded files from Fauci's personal phone and email

And just how that 'foia lady' Margaret Moore at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) helped Morens is now the subject of an additional probe by the coronavirus committee. 

For his part, Morens has claimed he didn't know he was doing anything wrong and said he wasn't aware he was deleting federal records or that using his personal email to conduct business-related matters was improper. 

But Chairman Wenstrup has requested briefings with the National Archives and NIH to discuss the extent of Morens' cover-up scheme.

'This evidence taken together suggests a conspiracy at the highest levels of NIH and NIAID to avoid public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic,' Wenstrup wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to NIH Director Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli.

The Ohio Republican also revealed earlier this week that Fauci's former Chief of Staff, Greg Folkers, also used tactics to evade FOIA requests by intentionally misspelling words in his communications regarding COVID-19 and its origins. 

Folkers, according to the committee, spelled EcoHealth as 'Ec~Health' when emailing about the defamed organization.