"A Conspiracy At The Highest Level of NIH and NIAID"

A lesson in how to hide evidence

US Representative Brad Wenstrup wrote to National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, Monica Bertagnolli, yesterday, suggesting “a conspiracy at the highest levels of NIH and NIAID to avoid public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic”.

He was referencing National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Senior Scientific Advisor, Dr. David Morens’ "use of personal e-mail accounts to avoid transparency” and concerns that he used them to “intentionally avoid transparency via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and the possibility that he intentionally deleted official records - specifically records related to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic”.

If you want a masterclass into how to avoid FOIA requests then Morens provides it.

Morens would forewarn President of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, of any potentially damaging FOIA productions. The Select Subcommittee is concerned that this was motivated by the pair’s relationship with Morens describing Daszak as “one of [his] oldest and best friends”.

“They’re awful - US Right to Know - just out to cause trouble and drum up lab leak controversy.

I hope NIH can help reduce the amount that comes out - some of the emails between us all via your NIH account were a bit embarrassing re. criticizing the lab leakers and will be reported as showing that we were ‘conspiring’ together in some way…

Eventually, there will be no more to FoIA - that’s the only silver lining.”

“PS, just got a FOIA from Gary Ruskin of US Right to Know. This one is only to me and not Tony or the others, and asks for all corresp with anyone at EHA going back 5 years.

Do you know these guys? From their website they sound like they have done alot of alarmist things.”

The next step in concealing evidence is to simply hide or destroy it.

“You are right, I need to be more careful. However, as I mentioned once before, I learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d but before the search starts, so I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.

A handy tip is to misspell key words. “After an agency receives a FOIA request, it is common to employ key word search terms to identify and subsequently produce responsive documents to the requester…However, it can be undermined by government employees that strategically use language to avoid key word searches.”

Examples of this tactic can be seen with Morens spelling “anders$n” when referencing virologist Kristian Anderson AND “Ec~Health” for EcoHealth alliance.

Finally, other evidence shows that Morens used private, encrypted Proton Mail accounts and forwarded confidential material to Gmail accounts.

Wenstrup says that “if what appears in these documents is true, this is an apparent attack on public trust and must be met with swift enforcement and consequences for those involved”.

Let’s hope there is swift enforcement and there are consequences but if anyone does go down, it will just be a scapegoat to cover for the real villains.