A top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday revealed a number of bombshell revelations about the National Institutes of Health’s cover-up of its activities during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. David Morens received a bipartisan grilling from House members, including an exchange with Rep. Kweise Mfume (D-MD) when the Democratic congressman told Morens that “I think you’re going to be haunted by your testimony today.
Committee Chair Republican Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup also confronted Morens on his discussion of a “back channel” to Dr. Fauci.
“On April 21, 2021, you wrote ‘I can either send stuff to Tony [Fauci] on his private e-mail or hand it to him at work or at his house,’” Wenstrup read. “On May 13, 2021, you wrote that you connected a reporter to Dr. Fauci via your ‘secret backchannel.’ What backchannel did you have for Dr. Fauci?”
Morens unseriously claimed that everything in the emails were “just jokes.”
“All these terms like secret backchannel and the other one you mentioned were just jokes. Jokes that I made in dealing with Peter [Daszak] because he was under death threats and very depressed,” Morens replied.
No one was laughing.
“There was no backchannel,” he added. “The backchannel was, uh, the backchannel to Tony was the same one that applies to everybody.”
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (HSSCP) provided critical background on its investigation into Dr. Morens and Dr. Fauci:
On June 29, 2023, the Select Subcommittee sent Dr. Morens a request for documents pertinent to its investigations from his personal e-mail accounts.
On November 20, 2023, in response to that letter, Dr. Morens produced approximately 2,000 pages of responsive documents to the Select Subcommittee. These documents mimicked what Dr. Morens produced to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during its investigation into alleged wrongful disposition of federal records by Dr. Morens.
On December 22, 2023 and January 18, 2024, Dr. Morens testified at transcribed interviews before the Select Subcommittee. At the interviews, Select Subcommittee counsel advised Dr. Morens that he was required pursuant to Title 18 Section 1001 of the United States Code to answer questions truthfully, including questions posed by Congressional staff in the interview, and that if he knowingly made false statements, he could be subject to criminal prosecution. Dr. Morens stated, on the record, that he understood the requirement and the consequences of not complying with that requirement.
On April 16, 2024, the Select Subcommittee announced a subpoena to compel Dr. Morens to produce the remaining responsive documents from his personal e-mail accounts. On April 30, 2024, in response to the subpoena, Dr. Morens produced approximately 30,000 more pages of responsive documents.
Dr. Morens, once a top adviser to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci, testified before the subcommittee on Wednesday.
The subcommittee had subpoenaed Dr. Morens multiple times before his appearance before Congress on Wednesday.
In January, the HSSCP related critical information about Dr. Morens prior to providing his testimony:
Dr. Morens was removed from his position at the NIH and placed on administrative leave after the Select Subcommittee revealed his potential federal records violation last year.
Despite Dr. Fauci’s concession that the lab-leak hypothesis is not a conspiracy theory, Dr. Morens stood with 100% certainty behind the zoonotic origin of COVID-19.
Dr. Morens admitted he has not explored any of the scientific evidence behind a potential lab leak or an engineered virus.
Dr. Morens denied deleting any COVID-19 origins material or forwarding any federal records to his Gmail in an effort to avoid FOIA.
Chairman Dr. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) had accused Dr. Morens of of "intentionally employing dilatory tactics in order to unreasonably stall" his scheduled appearance until after Fauci's hearing on June 3.
Now we know why.
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