House Republicans are launching an investigation into emails exchanged on private accounts between a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a leading epidemiologist at Boston University. This inquiry follows whistleblower testimony regarding an alleged cover-up related to the origins of COVID-19.
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic received information from a whistleblower with knowledge of email communications from 2020 between David Morens, a senior aide to then-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, and Gerald Keusch, an epidemiologist and associate director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories at Boston University.
The emails exchanged between Gerald Keusch and David Morens also involved Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a virus research organization. Morens informed the subcommittee that Daszak is a “close friend.”
The subcommittee was given time stamps and subject lines for four emails exchanged between Morens, Keusch, and Daszak regarding an EcoHealth project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) entitled “Understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.”
Two of the emails from Morens to Daszak and Keusch, both dated April 26, 2020, request confirmation of receipt and indicate “actions needed” regarding the contentious grant project. Another email, sent by Morens on July 13, 2020, with the subject line “China, SARS-CoV2 origin, animal reservoir, WHO mission.”
The fourth email, sent from Morens to the researchers on February 20, 2022, mentions in the subject line that the NIH program official overseeing the project, Erik Stemmy, is “unable to talk with [Daszak] anymore” about the bat coronavirus project, which had been suspended by that point.
The subcommittee initiated an investigation into Morens in June last year after discovering that Morens deliberately utilized his personal Gmail account to conduct official NIH business, aiming to circumvent Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to sensitive information. Additionally, Morens informed colleagues that he would “delete anything [he didn’t] want to see in the New York Times” from his government account.
During a transcribed interview with the subcommittee in January, Morens denied allegations of deleting any information regarding COVID origins from his government account and refuted claims of forwarding federal records to his personal account to evade FOIA requests.
Keusch and Daszak, in collaboration with other researchers, have co-authored five papers addressing the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and exploring the public health implications derived from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peter Daszak is set to testify in a public hearing before the Covid select subcommittee on May 1, where he will likely be asked about these email exchanges.
Source: The Washington Examiner
