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Article


THE NIH-ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE COVER-UP

By Roger Pielke Jr.

The Honest Broker

May 23, 2024

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Yesterday on Capitol Hill I attended a remarkable hearing. No, it was not the
one that I testified at for the Senate Budget Committee (more on that early next
week). It was the latest hearing of the House of Representatives Select
Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Yesterday’s hearing had a single witness, David Morens, who for 26 years was
Senior Advisor to the Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases — NIAID, which sits within National Institutes of Health, NIH, within
the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS. Morens was recently placed on
paid administrative leave, due to revelations associated with the committee’s
investigation.

The Director of NIAID who Morens advised for 26 years was Anthony Fauci, who
from 2009 to 2021 reported to the NIH Director, Frances Collins. Fauci and
Collins have come up before in the Select Committee’s investigation as the
motivating forces behind the so-called Proximal Origins paper.

For those who have not been closely following the work of the House Select
Committee, the committee has been investigating issues surrounding COVID-19
origins for over a year under chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH). The investigation
has helped to reveal how the so-called Proximal Origins paper was the result of
a behind-the-scenes effort to quash scientific discussions of the possibility
that COVID-19 may have resulted from a research-related incident in Wuhan.

The committee’s work in 2023 began with a fairly typical partisan divide — In
this case, with Democrats defending a natural origin of COVID-19 and Republicans
exploring the possibility of a lab leak. Yesterday’s hearing indicated that
divide has substantially closed, with Democrats and Republicans both now
admitting that a lab leak is a possibility, but certainly not proven.

The non-profit EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) and its president Peter Daszak have been
accused of supporting/funding/encouraging/motivating research in China that
collects bat viruses from the wild, and, possibly, conducting research in Wuhan
that made these viruses more virulent or transmissible. That research has
been identified as a possible origin of COVID-19, based on an accidental escape
of the virus.

HHS has recently debarred EHA from receiving further federal funds for research
as a consequence of a range of irregularities in its research and reporting,
along with the disastrous testimony of its president Peter Daszak on May 1
before the Select Committee. Before yesterday’s hearing, HHS announced that it
would also debar Peter Daszak, EHA president.

These are rare and significant actions.

At the hearing yesterday, if you did not know the party affiliations of the
members, based on their statements and questions to Morens, you would not be
able to tell Republicans from Democrats. It is a rare day indeed when Kweisi
Mfume (D-MD) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are singing in harmony from the
same hymn book.

The full scope of Morens’ offenses — which include allegations of violating
federal records retention laws, seeking to evade Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) requests, violating NIH scientific integrity policies, lying to Congress,
and rank misogyny — can be seen in detail in this report from the House Select
Committee released yesterday.

Here, I want to cut to the chase.

That Morens lied to Congress and sought to evade FOIA seems to me (and pretty
much all observers, including members of the Select Committee) to be well
established. Just consider the following email — from Morens to another bit
player in the saga, Gerald “Jerry” Keusch at Boston University — from the House
Select Committee’s report:

Source: House Select Committee on the Coronavirus 2024

There are many other damning examples. I would not be surprised if Morens faced
criminal charges.

Yesterday, under heated questioning from the Select Committee, Morens variously
took on the affect of a confused grandfather who could not understand how email
works, occasionally could not hear, selectively heard feedback from the speakers
(which I did not hear 5 feet away from him), was very tired, was only just
joking in his emails, did not understand common English words, did not
understand basic federal policies and procedures for government employees, could
not follow questions, and even denied that the emails said what they said. It
was a remarkable display of obfuscation.

One member (a Democrat), clearly exasperated at Morens’ evasive and
contradictory replies, ultimately told Morens to just take the Fifth. That was
good advice.

I’ve seen hundreds of congressional hearings. Along with EcoHealth Alliance’s
Peter Daszak’s appearance before the same committee on May 1, 2024, this was
possibly the worst appearance by a witness that I’ve observed in the past 30
years. At the hearing, I sat next to who was presumably Morens lawyer. He did
not intervene at any point, but often appeared pensive as Morens offered a
bounty of contradictory and self-indicting testimony during the two hour
hearing.

One curious statement in Moren’s emails that I want to focus on is an October,
2021 email that he sent to EHA president Peter Daszak, asserting that Tony Fauci
(NIAID Director) and Francis Collins (NIH Director) were trying to “protect”
Daszak in order to “protect” themselves:

Source: House Select Committee on the Coronavirus 2024

Morens said yesterday on several occasions that his desire to “protect” Daszak
was based only on his almost two-decade friendship with Daszak. However, that
does not explain why Morens asserted that Fauci and Collins may have wanted to
protect Daszak, much less participate in an elaborate and illegal scheme to
defeat FOIA from revealing their discussions of COVID-19 origins.

On that point, Morens explained explicitly in another email that the focus of
the emails that were deleted to defeat FOIA requests was COVID-19 origins
(emphasis added):

> On 18 April 2020, Peter Daszak emailed me and Tony, congratulating Tony on
> standing up for science. That email somehow fell into the hands of the
> Congressman, probably via a FOIA of someone who didn’t delete it, as I did
> (delete all of Peter’s emails and others relating to origin) when the shit hit
> the fan.
> 
> David Morens email, 28 June 2021

Apparently, Fauci’s motivation to have participated in the scheme (according to
Morens) was not to protect Daszak, but to protect himself. Morens explained to
Daszak in an email in April 2021 that Fauci’s interests in this issues were not
about Daszak’s research (at the time suspended by the Trump Administration), as
seen in the email below (the “he” and “him” is Fauci).

Source: House Select Committee on the Coronavirus 2024

That there was a cover-up at NIH/NIAID is now well established. Top officials
used private email addresses and perhaps burner phones to conduct official
government business and to delete communications about COVD-19 origins in order
to defeat FOIA requests — all of this is stated in their own words.

The huge question that this raises is — Why the cover-up?

Morens assertion that this was all done to protect his close friend from public
attention fails to explain why Fauci would join in, given that he did not share
a close friendship with Daszak — and even if he did, why he would risk his own
standing and reputation on Daszak’s behalf.

Consider that Morens testified yesterday that despite working as Fauci’s top
advisor for 26 years, he would not consider Fauci a close friend. Thus, it
beggars belief to think that Fauci would have considered Daszak a close friend
who he felt a need to “protect” even if that meant violating federal laws.

Further, if all the emails showed was exculpatory discussions, then why the
obsessive concern about FOIA?

One hint as to actual motivations may be given by the Proximal Origins
conspiracy that accompanies the cover-up. As has been well documented
— here, here, here — Fauci (and Collins) were involved very early in the
pandemic in helping to organize a small group of carefully-selected scientists
to refute the possibility of a research-related origin of COVID-19 — which I
have argued clearly violates HHS science integrity policies.

Protecting EHA and promoting Proximal Origins point in the same direction.
Sherlock Holmes would raise an eyebrow.

Anthony Fauci is scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on June
3, 2024. Here are the 10 questions that I’d like the committee to ask him:

 * You have/had a Gmail email. Do you have other email accounts? A burner phone
   or phones? Other means of communication outside your official government
   email and phone?
 * Why did you communicate using a Gmail account? Did you ever discuss U.S.
   government business using that Gmail account or any other non-governmental
   communication channels?
 * When did you become aware of Morens efforts to evade FOIA, as he frequently
   asserted in his emails? How much did you direct or participate in such
   evasion?
 * Morens engaged in a cover-up, based on his own admissions. What was the
   subject of the cover-up? Why did you participate?
 * Why were you trying to protect Peter Daszak and EHA, as asserted by Morens?
 * Why was protecting Daszak and EHA also protecting your reputation, as
   asserted by Morens?
 * Why did you organize Proximal Origins outside formal processes rather than
   convene a formal science advisory committee under FACA to explore COVID-19
   origins?
 * Given what we know now about the divergence of Proximal Origins authors’
   private versus public views on COVID-19 and what was actually published — as
   well as the role of ghost authorship — should Proximal Origins be retracted?
 * Have you and NIAID always followed HHS science integrity policies?
 * Do you agree with the disbarment of EHA and Peter Daszak? Why or why not?

The House Select Committee on the Coronavirus is an excellent example of the
essential role of congressional oversight. The committee has uncovered important
new information and in the process brought together Democrats and Republicans to
partner in serving the common interests of the American people — and that is the
legislative branch holding the executive branch to account. That’s one reason
the Founders created three branches of government.

For Fauci, Collins, Morens, HHS, NIH, NIAID the best case scenario at this point
is that this situation reflects a massive, even historical, failure of
scientific management, oversight, and integrity related to potentially risky
research on dangerous pathogens. We already know that NIH and NIAID failed in
their jobs and that major reforms are needed.

Far worse possibilities include that the cover-up and conspiracy now well
documented are what stand between where we are now and learning with greater
certainty the origins of COVID-19. If — and it still is a big if — the cover-up
and conspiracy are associated with government officials (and collaborating
non-governmental scientists) trying to hide the U.S. government’s actual or
potential role in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, then it would be among
the most consequential scandals in U.S. history.

So long as COVID-19 origins remain uncertain, I strongly encourage the House
Select Committee to continue their work into the next Congress, regardless who
takes the House in November. This issue is far too important to set aside.

My view, Morens (R) and his lawyer (L)

See also: How Democrats Left the IPCC Behind | Birth Dearth or Baby Boom? |
Culling for Climate | Bullish on Solar


ROGER PIELKE JR.

NONRESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW


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