Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, faced a grilling at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, hours after the release of emails revealing stunning COVID-era communications. Morens appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, offering apologies but few insights into the alarming messages.

The newly released emails detail interactions between Morens and Dr. Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organization that funded coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.

In one email, Morens boasted about learning how to make emails disappear. He wrote how he “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.”

When a Republican said he was happy to subpoena the “FOIA lady,” Morens claimed he was making a joke. “I wasn’t lying, I was making a joke. I said something like, ‘I have a way to make it go away.’ But that was just a euphemism.”

Morens also wrote, “We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns and if we did, we wouldn’t put them in emails. And if we found them, we would delete them.” When asked about deleting records, Morens replied, “Not to my knowledge… But again, we’re at the issue of defining what’s a federal record? I deleted a lot of emails. I do it every day.”

In other released emails, Morens expressed concerns about what was being sent to his work email and personal email, informing others that he would “delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.” It is unclear if any deletions occurred. Morens wrote, “As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly… Stuff sent to my gmail gets to my phone … but not my NIH computer.”

Morens attributed the emails’ language to “black humor,” saying, “It’s just something I’m very ashamed that I can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

Republican lawmakers accused Morens of deleting emails and using his personal email account to skirt Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Chairman James Comer pressed Morens on his actions, to which Morens offered, “I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry.”

The investigation is ongoing, with subpoenas potentially being issued to further uncover the truth.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)