The Department of Justice received a letter from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) requesting that Dr. David Morens be the subject of a formal inquiry into claims of “improper concealment and destruction of data.”
Morens, a Senior Advisor to the Dir. at the National Institutes of Health and a former top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, faces accusations of engaging in corrupt behavior to circumvent the law on various issues, including investigations from the Select Subcommittee on the Covid Pandemic. Morens allegedly staged a cover-up and deleted important correspondence and data related to the investigation.
Paul wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, “I write to urge the U.S. DOJ to open an investigation into the alleged concealment and destruction of records by Dr. David Morens, Senior Advisor to the Director at the NIH.” “In addition, I ask that you look into claims that personnel in the NIH FOIA office may have colluded with Dr. Morens to circumvent regulations pertaining to the retention of public documents.”
Paul highlighted legislation in the letter that stipulates that an individual may face fines and imprisonment for a maximum of three years if they “willfully and illegally” conceal, erase, or destroy a federal record. Paul added that anyone who attempted to “conceal, delete, or destroy a government record” was also subject to this.
Furthermore, the Washington Examiner previously revealed that Morens used a personal email account instead of a government-approved one to discuss pandemic-related topics and avoid scrutiny and responsibility through FOIA requests.
Paul’s letter is crucial because it tries to hold possibly dishonest bureaucrats responsible. The junior senator from Kentucky is leading the effort to uncover dishonest public servants who behaved as if they were above the law during the epidemic. These individuals broke norms and regulations during the turmoil of a once-in-a-lifetime global disaster, convinced they would never face consequences.
Such individuals have obviously forgotten Paul’s principles.
Examine a few of Paul’s arguments in his letter to the Department of Justice about the substance of Moren’s emails. They revealed Moren’s blatant concealment of purposeful deceit, as well as his astonishing absence of corrupt hubris.
Paul noted, “Emails discovered by the House Subcommittee on the Covid Pandemic show considerable evidence that Dr. Morens inappropriately utilized his personal email account to dodge federal records regulations and criminally destroyed government materials relevant to the origins of COVID-19.” “As you know, I always try to correspond on Gmail because my NIH email is frequently FOIA’d,” Dr. Morens wrote.
Paul also brought up an incident where Morens said that a security breach had compromised his personal email and that he had to find another way to communicate. He said, “Don’t worry, just send to any of my addresses, and I will delete anything I do not want to see in the New York Times.”
Paul stated, “In addition, recently discovered emails point to a larger plot inside the NIH FOIA office to help Dr. Morens circumvent public records rules and delete information illegally.” “Dr. Morens responded to Peter Daszak via email, saying, ‘I think we are all secure since our NIH FOIA girl here taught me how to make emails disappear once I am FOIA, but before the search starts. Additionally, I erased the majority of the previous emails after sending them to Gmail. The author added in his letter, “[We] are all clever enough to know not to have smoking firearms, and if we had, we would not put them in emails.” If we came across any, we would promptly remove them.
Paul deserves praise for his attempts to make Morens accountable. This letter contains undeniably incriminating evidence. It is difficult to argue that Morens did not intentionally attempt to mislead and unlawfully conceal his conversations.
Morens was aware of his intentions. Paul happened to catch him doing it.
If he truly possesses honesty, Merrick Garland will look into Paul’s request for a probe.
