Senate committee convenes hearing to examine competing claims on the origins of COVID-19.
Sen. Roger Marshall is calling for a “full audit” of responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at the National Institutes of Health over the past decade, after a House subcommittee heard of health officials’ efforts to “make emails disappear” and hide other documents related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Marshall (R-Kan.) also wants all federal employees who violated the transparency statute to be referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution, according to his June 18 letter to Christi Grimm, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services.
A copy of Mr. Marshall’s letter to Ms. Grimm was obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) includes the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which was headed for many years by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a highly visible public health adviser to Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fauci was the highest-paid federal employee when he retired in 2023.
“Due to the recent revelations of disturbing behavior by NIH and NIAID officials, I demand a full audit of all FOIA production at NIH and NIAID, including a thorough assessment of compliance with the law,” Mr. Marshall told Ms. Grimm.
“If this investigation determines that any federal employees have committed legal offenses, I recommend you immediately refer those individuals to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal investigation.”
The FOIA makes all government documents publicly available upon request from any U.S. citizen, subject only to a handful of exemptions, including issues related to national security, ongoing criminal investigations, the protection of commercial trade secrets, and individual privacy.
Mr. Marshall noted that Dr. David Martens, Dr. Fauci’s former senior adviser, told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic during a May 28 hearing that he worked with officials in NIH’s FOIA office to conceal emails, text messages, and other government documents concerning federal funding of COVID-19-related research, as well as evidence of the virus’s origins.
“Dr. Morens went so far as to write in one email ‘i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear.’”
The demand for an inspector general investigation into the NIH’s FOIA production activities spanning more than a decade comes as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) convenes on Tuesday for a hearing focused on the origins of COVID-19.
More than 1.2 million Americans have died due to the coronavirus since January 2020, along with an estimated 6 million people globally.
Witnesses testifying at the HSGAC hearing will address two theories about the origins of the virus. One theory holds that it originated among bats in Chinese caves and transitioned to humans via an as-yet-unknown intermediary species.
According to Chinese officials, the virus was first detected in an open-air market near the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The second theory posits that the genetic structure of the virus indicates it is the product of gain-of-function manipulation to expand its lethal characteristics to include masking of symptoms and causing death.
Proponents of the second theory, including Mr. Marshall, point out that the Chinese military controls the WIV and is actively engaged in biochemical warfare research.
In his letter to Ms. Grimm, Mr. Marshall also noted that the origins of the virus remain unconfirmed, largely due to the refusal of the Chinese communist regime to allow U.S. and international investigators full access to the WIV.
“Since November 2019, when several researchers within the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) first became sick with an illness that exhibited symptoms consistent with COVID-19, the [Chinese Communist Party] has covered up, obfuscated, or outright blocked independent attempts to discover the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr. Marshall wrote.
The Epoch Times reached out to NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
