USA News LIVE | House Oversight Committee Hearing LIVE | Dr. David Morens Grilled LIVE | N18L
avat that no other government employee is copied at a government address as all government emails are potentially foilable next email from you this is sent from my Gmail account please send all rep applies here to Gmail there are things I can’t say except Tony is aware and I have and I have learned that there are ongoing efforts within NIH to steer through this with minimal damage to you Peter and colleagues and to NIH and ni Aid next email Jerry my private Gmail account is where I sent this from after forwarding to myself from my NIH account please try to send only to my Gmail as we are doing a couple weeks ago but I messed up a few times and sent them from my NIH account because on my phone the two are merged and then when you respond by hitting reply it goes to NIH after some recent issues I’m going to try to strictly use own discussions then the next email I learned from our Foya lady here how to make emails disappear after I foad but before the search starts so I think we are all safe but I deleted most of these earlier emails after sending them to Gmail next email with the help of our it folks I went over the whole computer and phone situation basically my Gmail is now safe from Foya this is thus it should be safe to communicate safely with you Peter and others as long as we use my private email gmail I ask you both that nothing in large letters cap letters gets sent to me except to my Gmail sir I believe you have lied here today to us to Congress when you say oh I didn’t know this I didn’t intentionally use my Gmail are you kidding me Dr morren do you want to change your testimony no I don’t because I think that the the context you’re you’re all these there’s so many of these emails you just mentioned I can’t even remember them all but the context is that this Gmail communication thing was set up purely to deal with p with personal things that were not government business with uh and and then other people Sir with all due respect how can you say that when you clearly and all these emails were intentionally avoiding Foya you said it in your own words sir well but so what let’s talk about what you mean by intentionally avoiding Foya I don’t consider that telling them don’t send me things because they could get foyer is intentionally avoiding Foya because those are personal things and with respect to my NIH email I couldn’t possibly avoid fo you because I had no control sir did you use in most of these emails your official signature it said David M morens O ni a i d ni these were official well let me tell you something else I didn’t mention and you forwarded you forwarded from your NIH email to your personal email and you said it right in your email I learned only about a year ago that the fusion of my Gmail on my email and my email ni email on my phone um had another side effect too and by the way I finally got it to to take that off to get rid of it so there’s no more Gmail email Fusion but after I asked them to take it off I realized that if a if a Gmail or NIH email came to me and I replied to it for some reason there was a default where the signature I had on gmail which said David moren’s of Bethesda Maryland or something didn’t go out but the NIH email went out I don’t know how that happened I didn’t do it consciously sir I’m sorry I I just don’t believe you and I yelled back Dr morren my experience I just want to say I don’t know what defect you’re talking about about when you get an email from one email you have to intentionally move it to another email it doesn’t automatically shift over to another email I’m sorry I don’t I now recognize Mr inum from Maryland for five minutes of questions thank you very much uh Mr chairman I want to thank you and the ranking member I mean if this were not laughable it would be laughable I don’t know what I’m watching I saw some of this in my office and got here a little while ago and caught the rest of it Mr Warren this is a tale out of some sort of movie and I’m not trying to particularly characterize you except that I can’t Define you I mean you seem to be Here There and Everywhere on these questions and I’m trying to get what your testimony is here to this body other than I don’t know I don’t remember I’m not sure much of your personal email account exchanges uh have been revealed as we all know by professional matters on both your official and your personal email accounts that is correct isn’t it um I don’t exactly know what the word conflated means but mixed them up is that is that what it means well you want to take the Fifth Amendment I mean you don’t seem to remember anything and I just I find that amazing something does not seem right here it’s very unsettling to me and obviously to members of this committee we believe that every Federal grant applicant should have full and fair consideration that’s consistent with federal guidelines and I’m not sure that has occurred I just I don’t know what to make of this um so let me ask you since you are under oath what is it that you want this committee to know about these so many allegations that have been Herald at uh sent your way um I want this committee to know that however many mistakes I made and however bad they were I was trying to do the right thing I had a friend a personal friend who was um in danger of being murdered in his family being murdered and everything centered around that and uh I did what I could do and pretty soon this the Gmail thing which I thought was um desirable and legal getting personal stuff sir you lost you lost me what does a friend of yours who is close to being Meritor have to do with the way that you performed your duties I’m sorry I don’t understand your question could you I didn’t understand your answer you said I was dealing with a friend who was close to being murdered and then you went on to say something else I’m trying to connect them my U let me just repeat my reason for telling Peter and others to go to my Gmail is because Peter and and later Peter hotz and some others were under death threats and anything they sent me on my government email could end up in the public domain and and then I would be responsible for you know making their uh their Peril even worse does that make sense or can I explain it again go ahead all right um let me go back again what I said before when when Peter contact Peter dashak contacted me in early 2020 and let me know that an email that he had sent me to my government NIH email had ended up being published in a in a journal or something and that it was personally embarrassing to him I said to him as I said several times to him why are you sending it on my government email this is not government business it’s your personal thing about your um state of mind about your security Arrangements that if if no your address being published um if your security arrangements are known than people trying to kill you could make it you know could maybe do it and I felt responsible for that so I just Peter was very upset and I was upset too Dr morren what else do you feel responsible for pardon what else do you feel responsible for you I’m sorry I’m getting this Echo here and I just let me should I turn off my microphone yeah you’re using my time let me ask you why didn’t you report any of this to the ethics office I I don’t know I didn’t uh I I don’t even know what our ethics office does but Peter certainly reported the F Peter reported it to the I’m not worried about Peter I’m talking about you Peter’s not here I just want to know if you thought this was ethically incorrect or improper why didn’t you report it to the ethics office what are you referring to is what being ethically improper well you just said you told you asked him why was he sending this to one email account when it should have gone to another one and you’re asking me whether I thought what he was doing was unethical what I was doing is unethical sir I think you’re going to be haunted by your testimony today and it’s unfortunate it’s all on the record and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to many of us certainly not to me and I don’t want to uh carry this on any further Mr chairman I’m going to yield back any time that I have remaining I thank you for the opportunity now recognize Mr cloud from Texas for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman uh is this correct that this was your title the senior advisor to National Institute of allergy and infectious disease former director Dr Anthony fouchy it’s I think my I think my title is senior adviser to the director National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases oh okay and and how long did you work with Dr fouchy or for him um 26 years and and you’d also consider him a personal friend no I mean no you know he’s a he’s a colleague and Tony is a very you know private guy he doesn’t have a lot of I’ve never gone out with him to have a beer you mentioned Peter dok is a personal friend for for 20 years is that correct I’ll be a little less than 20 years but somewhere in that range okay and you your statement today still is that you did not intend to avoid Foya yes sir in spite of these several emails we have saying otherwise is that correct I think it’s correct but I don’t I’m not there there’s some elements of this you know that I don’t think are being understood and you just said that you did no official business on your Gmail account is that correct I I tried to make sure I never did official business that’s not what you just said a few minutes ago you said you never did you said the purpose of this was for well to to to here’s here’s here’s an email from Peter to you attached as a single sheet with bullets explaining why Dr tavic was wrong and hopefully con convincing Folks at NIH to stop criticizing EA’s reporting compliance please don’t share this letter yet we’ll edit that and get it to NIH by Tuesday hopefully you replied Peter this is an excellent draft I will suggest some word smithing tweets later today uh he said thanks for the comments David I’ll incorporate them today do you think that’s not official business I’d have to look at it I don’t know okay this is related eh EA’s Echo Health is that right yeah but I mean yes okay so this this is a an organization who got a government grant that you’re supposed to be overseeing right I don’t have any I don’t have any Grant oversite in well NIH NIH does but I’m sure and and you are the senior advisor to the head of right but I have no involvement in any grants in any aspect of any grants sure and I don’t know whether the what you’re referring to is a grant that was already funded or uh an application that a friend do you not see that it’s a conflict of interest for you to be advising someone who’s working to get a federal Grant on how they’re communicating and approaching and even suggesting tweet outline tweet revision I think it would be a a conflict of interest as I understand it um helping some your Gmail instead of your official mail for communication with Peter Well using my Gmail was a it was for a different purpose that was for avoiding um more embarrassment and danger to him specifically as your email say avoiding Foya correct no well yeah you I guess you could say that avoiding him sending something that had nothing to do with NIH business but could be foyer and embarrass him okay now there’s been this uh dialogue That You Know You’re The One Bad Apple in a whole bunch uh before you know our last hearing the communication was Peter was the One Bad Apple out of a whole bunch uh who was the Foya lady that you mentioned I think Marg Moore Marg is and Margaret Margaret okay what what instructions what tips did she give you about avoiding Foya well she gave me none about avoiding Foya that was a joke but what she did say to me was let me back up a little bit you sure about that H you are you sure about that we can subpoena her email too you know we can and we can call her to witness as well so make sure your T I’m telling you what I know and remember and it’s the truth as far as I know it um when Peter had do you think you’re the first employee that she gave Ado advice on how to avoid Foya she didn’t give me advice about how to avoid Foya let me let me f you said she gave you advice on how to avoid that’s what I said because I was sort of so you were lying then but you’re telling us the truth now I wasn’t lying I was making a joke with Peter you know I I said something like I have a way to make it go away but that was just a euphemism may I tell you what she told me uh sure um I was worried because I was getting so many foyers I was worried that personal things were going to get into it so I went and talked to her and says how does this work because at that point in time I had no involvement in foyers what happened if if if I was going to be foyer the foyer office would notify me and say do we have your permission to do an a Foya investigation and I’d say yes and that’s the end of what I heard but I was worried that these personal things would get caught up in it so I asked her how it worked and she said well you really don’t have to worry about personal things because when there’s a foyer request we the foer office negotiate to limit the scope of what they’re looking for to among other things make sure that inadvertent stuff doesn’t get in there you you said a comment earlier that concerned me you know the relationship between between your organization NIH and Echo Health should be one of oversight uh and you said to start off this hearing you said we all felt it was our job to cheer Peter up um I I’m just really concerned because Peter even admitted the last time that he did not do a good job of overseeing the grant that went to the Wuhan lab it’s clear that our government did not do a good job of overseeing Echo Health uh and and it’s to me speaks to the culture that is at an issue here when you think your job instead of oversight is to make sure that we’re cheering up the people we should be overseeing thank you chairman I yeld back now recognize Dr McCormack from Georgia for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chair Dr Moren said uh it’s become apparent now I’m no lawyer I’m a doctor but but just looking through what evidence we have and what we subed what we’ve gotten uh it’s become apparent that you and many employees at nah and niad have been stonewalling and outright avoiding our subcommittee’s investigation not only is this a violation of law as far as I’m understanding but it’s also Fosters a continual dist Trust of government in its officials and what we’ve been funding um last July this SE this select subcommittee discovered the initial evidence of your misconduct and reported to the National Archives and Records Administration and at the National Archives Direction NIH started an investigation into your use of personal email to conduct official business and the unlawful deletion of federal records interesting talked about to avoid embarrassment I think that’s done just the opposite uh when the investigation began you were placed on paid administrative leave in simpler terms you have been continuing to receive your salary and your benefits but do not perform any official duties as far as we have been notified you have not been subject to any discipline or accountability to this point is that correct well I would say that being placed on administrative leave is a is a discipline because I love my job and I I would like to be back there doing work and it’s painful for me not to be able to work with my colleagues and may I also say that that investigation of me that you referred to for destroying documents exonerated me and said there’s no evidence I destroyed any documents okay and you probably have that you information yourself I have it I’m not going to ask about the status of the investigation because I think that’s inappropriate this time uh and I don’t think it would be appropriate for you to comment on ongoing investigation uh but I hope that the sub commmittee receives answers from the NIH as to the status of the investigation soon which we still have not received uh because we don’t just we don’t think that it’s appropriate to pay people who aren’t able to do a job at the time so I think we’re both wasting our time um in your emails recovered through Foya you boasted to Dr daik that you had a secret back Channel quote unquote uh to communicate with Dr fouchy uh that’s what we’ve seen so far we also have statements concerning the NIH IAD and foa’s officer instruction on how to avoid document production through intentional misspellings of keywords to avoid triggering hits in automated search quiries in response to Foya requests and congressional oversight inquiries D Rin do you deny these statements you know I’m sorry I’m not sure I followed everything you said I’m also getting a little Echo from your side but uh let me move away from the let me turn off the microph may I reclaim that time that I’m going to repeat please thank you uh we have statements concerning the NIH NAD Foya officer instruction on how to avoid documents produ production through intern intentional sorry misspellings of keywords to avoid triggering hits on automatic search queries in response to foyer requests and congressional oversight inquiries that you had these secret back Channel ways to get a hold of fouchy that that you are trying to avoid queries through foyer by misspellings and other things that’s what we have come to the conclusion on do you deny that microphone microphone microphone I I think there’s some misunderstanding here the secret back Channel joking terminology to my knowledge was never about foas so you’re going to joke about back channels to fouchy and about misspellings on on queries that’s a joke not very funny to me I you know I would have to see this communication it’s confusing to me because I had no back CH you know I could walk into Tony’s office and talk to him any time I wanted that there’s no need to have a back Channel and I had face Toof face meetings with him all the time so um you know the back Channel thing so you deny you deny these statements is what you’re saying I think there’s a mixup somewhere so you you deny it yes I guess I do okay Dr brins we have you previous statement on Foya documents here chairman I request unanimous consent to submit these documents for the record without objection okay based on your answer you either lied to Congress or you’re transcribe interview or are lying here today uh this caused me to believe that your behavior as senior scientific adviser to the director of reflects much broader NIH and niad wide practice which really concerns me this select subcommittee must bring HHS and the agencies beneath the to heel in every way possible over the final seven months of this subcommittee uh I want to take a moment to thank the chairman and my colleagues for their leadership thus far we must earn back American people’s trust and confidence we must have full transparency and with that I yield Dr Moren I’m going to take a little time to uh read some statements and ask some more questions on January 18 you were asked if you ever assisted in the drafting of Correspondence that Dr dashek sent to the National Institutes of Health regarding Eco Health’s terminated Grant you answered no on January 18 you were asked if you ever provided advice to Dr deik regarding his Grant termination you answered no in your Gmail on March 29 2001 you responded to Dr jazic with edits to a letter that he sent to the NIH uh on October 25 2021 you responded to Dr desk that you would edit uh an Eco Health press release regarding the grant termination uh on April 28th 2020 you responded to Dr zazic with edits to an ecoh Health press release regarding the grant termination on October 25 2021 you provided Dr daik with advice regarding preparing a timeline regarding Ecco Health late year late five-year report submission on December 7 2021 you wrote to the chair of Eco Health Board of Directors to quote put in a word end quote for Dr dashek did you ever advise Dr dashik on how to respond to NIH compliance actions yes or no how did what’s the word to compliance actions did you ever advise Dr dashek on how to respond to NIH compliance actions well what I did yes I did tell him multiple times that’s all I’m asking did you ever edit a letter Dr daek sent to NIH in response to a compliance action well I must have I don’t remember it but I saw I saw such a letter that uh I don’t know what it was but apparently I helped him do it but did you ever edit a press release that Dr daik issued in response to a compliance action did I send a press did you ever edit a press release that Dr daek issued in respon to compliance action must have but I don’t don’t remember it okay did you ever Advocate on behalf of Dr daic to Ecco Health’s board of directors I sent a letter to Nancy green the head of the board of directors um essentially saying you know my personal knowledge of Peter shall um shall I wait a minute go ahead um um this was in response to Peter saying you know the board is worried that about all these accusations get speak I could be fired can you tell the board that I’m a good person and you know as far as you know I’m an upstanding guy and I did that but as a private citizen not as a representing NIH thank you I now recognize Miss Green from Georgia for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman uh Dr Morin your emails have been quite interesting uh reading them has been uh pretty shocking on uh April 18th 2020 you wrote an email saying uh Peter daik emailed me and Tony congratulating Tony on standing up for science that email somehow fell into the hands of the congressman probably via a Foya of someone who didn’t delete it as I did delete all of Peter’s emails and others relating to the origin when the started hitting the fan anyway the congressman got a copy of Peter D’s emails from someone at n NIH and he now wants to get any reply Tony and I or anyone else may have sent back to Peter mine was erased long ago I verified that today and I feel pretty sure Tony’s was too the best way to avoid Foya hassles is to delete all emails when you learn a subject is getting sensitive in any case there’s nothing here except opportunities H to hassle harass and huff and puff you really got into some opportunities you also wrote on June 16 2020 you said the foyers are Dreadful and paranoia inducing uh in the old days we had to do them ourselves by hand I mean finding and printing out thousands of emails coming in and going out now they sometimes Foya text messages too many foas turn up thousands of pages of docs and of course most of meaningless 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’d delete them you wrote on February 24th 202 1 you said you were right and I need to be more careful however as I mentioned once before I learned from our Foya lady here how to make emails disappear after I am Foyd 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 Dr moren’s who’s your Foya lady is it Hillary Clinton you’re welcome thank you for the humor um I think you know you said about 10 things there and my brain can’t keep them all in uh in my head but um I I think I’ve answered a lot of those questions that the the Foy I told you who the Foy lady was I I told you what she told me I told you that I told the committee that it’s impossible to avoid a Foya it’s impossible to to uh destroy an NIH document an email document well clearly clearly because we’ve we’ve got your emails and they’re they’re pretty shocking um I do I do appreciate humor as well but you do you do receive a taxpayer paycheck and um we when it comes to work emails there’s a lot of things that shouldn’t really by the way I if I understood what you just said let me just say that a lot of government uh emails come to my Gmail stuff from CDC my paycheck this is all related to your job though regardless of which email account like I said Hillary Clinton had a private server as well and she put a lot of things there and somehow they disappeared uh Dr menen you also wrote on October 5th 2021 Peter I just got news that the Foya picked up an email I sent you saying that Tony commented he was brain dead jokingly of course however Ron Johnson is all over it and now after me Tony will be pissed rightfully so I deleted the email but I now learn that every email I ever got since 1998 is captured and will be turned over whether or not I instantly deleted it Gmail phone text I need to scrupulously rely on those exclusively on uh July 22nd 2020 this one was actually pretty interesting I am actually em bibing a double or is it a triple Martini at the moment not sure of the amount of eoh because I just poured until my elbow got sore but the olive at the bottom is hard to see no hot tub in my condo I tried to negotiate a Jacuzzi but they bulked and I caved in any case now that I am divorced what good is a hot tub or jacuzzi if I am lucky enough to find a girlfriend I will spring for a Jacuzzi upgrade my wine cooler get a mattress that will take more of a pounding and stop working so hard in the meantime I will work here work at my job of trying to make the boss look good uh in the summer of 2020 um Co was raging and I personally believe that uh Peter daik at Eco Health had a lot to do with the fact that covid was raging because experimenting on viruses that turn into um basically a monster that has murdered millions and millions of of people is something to take very seriously I have one more question for you uh this is this is where you emailed and talked about Kickbacks um this was on o August 27th 2020 after you were talking about covering up for Tony uh you said uh of course there’s a kickback and then you also referenced a kickback on August 27th 2020 you said do I get a kickback too much f*cking money do you deserve it all let’s discuss have you made any money off of Ecco Health off of covid-19 and off of um covid vaccines Dr Moren then then what were you talking about with Kickbacks that’s not a joke you were talking about Kickbacks and and this is something that’s very serious as I said millions of people died and millions of people were forced to take a vaccine they should have never had to take against their will thank you Mr chairman now recognize Dr Joyce from Pennsylvania for five minutes a question thank you chairman W for convening this important hearing over the past months this subcommittee has heard testimony from Dr DC of Eco health and and NIH deputy director Dr tavic during that questioning of both of these Witnesses has been become clear to me that the nih’s current Grant processes are inadequate to ensure the proper oversight of federal funds Dr dassk revealed that Eco Health’s renegotiated Grant would rely on continued work from the Wuhan Institute of virology and Dr tabic confirmed that NIH was unaware of this continued collaboration when certifying Eco house compliance this means that based on false statements NIH and niad approved Federal funding to go toward work involving the debar Wuhan Institute of virology Dr morrens do you agree that the NIH must have a rigorous Grant review process in order to ensure the grants that they provide are a responsible use of the federal taxpayer dollars yes do you agree that the strict review processes are especially important when evaluating a grantee who is out of compliance and determining if they are still receiving funding yes but I mean thank you yes is the answer on September 7th 2021 you wrote to Dr dasic in an email titled for Urgent review questions raised by Eco Health Alliance Grant proposal you wrote do not worry behind the scenes means NIH is sticking up for Ecco Health that’s a quote and proceeded to forward internal NIH Communications to Dos to Dr dasik what did you mean by saying that the NIH was sticking up for Ecco Health behind the scenes you know I don’t remember specifically but I felt sounds nefarious doesn’t it it sounds what it sounds like it’s suspicious it sounds nefarious it does yeah it’s concerning isn’t it yeah you I don’t were you regularly colluding with Dr D in order to promote Eco Health in the NIH did I collude with him yeah that’s my question no is using an unofficial email address to provide grantees with non-public information about Grant consideration consistent with NIH standards review process you know I think what I was referring to is stuff that was in the public domain there was a newspaper store why would you use a private email to do that because you know at one point I stopped communicating with Peter and the others on anything but Gmail why would you do that well I’ve already explained that because things that things that they tell me that are private things could get you know get into the public domain if they send it to my well you said it was in the public domain it it’s personally editing grantee responses to NIH compliance efforts as you did with letters Ecco Health sent to NIH consistent with NIH and niad standard compliance process uh it’s probably not I I’d have to go look at it and under you know I don’t remember anything it certainly is not do you believe that using your personal email in this way was consistent with NIH and niad policy and are you aware of other NIH or niad employees who also conducted official work on unofficial emails you know I don’t know of anybody specifically but you know we get U training on emails all the time and in that training we are told that it’s a policy to try to separate them so did you follow that policy I I try to yes and I we have evidence that you did not follow that policy trying to is not success the government standards of the NIH should mean following policy do you agree that you failed to follow NIH policy I do agree but you know I find this to be quite concerning as we look to how we move forward recognizing that NIH standards and NIH policies were failed I think that your testimony here today continues to affirm to us that NIH policies has dismally failed when it came to covid-19 Mr chairman I thank you for the opportunity to have this hearing today and I yield the balance of my time thank you Dr morrens it’s not the intention of this committee to throw the baby out with the bathwater and I agree with Dr Ruiz and many public servants work diligently and honestly every day and I applaud those public servants we applaud their work but it’s clear between your transcribed interview the actions that we have seen through your emails and your testimony today that we have more investigating to do and in closing I I just want to say thank you for appearing before us today and with that and without objection all members will have five legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response if there’s no further Business Without objection the select subcommittee stands adjourned the select subcommittee on the Corona virus pandemic will come to order I want to welcome everyone at the discretion of the chair and pursuing to an agreement with the committee on Energy and Commerce the chair chairman and ranking member of the committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations Mr Morgan Griffith and Miss Kathy Caster are permitted to participate in today’s hearings for the purposes of questions and give three minute opening statements if they so desire without objection the chair May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement good afternoon everyone Dr Morris you wrote in an email that you have never said anything that you would not be happy to defend before a congressional committee today sir is that day the select subcommittee has been thoroughly investigating the US government’s response to the Corona virus pandemic this yearslong investigation has been conducted to both understand the actions of our Public Health agencies institutions and officials and the actions taken so that we can learn from deficiencies and ingrain proficiencies we are learning from experiences and developing better Pathways for processes responses and new ways forward so that the next time there’s a public health emergency such as a pandemic our response will meet the high standards the American people expect deserve and pay for this is not McCarthyism this is not stalinesque this is not a Witch Hunt as you as you Dr morrens and Dr dashak have so eloquently labeled it before this is seeking truth justice and the American way while conducting this investigation the select subcommittee uncovered extremely concerning Behavior by Dr Anthony Fouch senior scientific adviser and the witness before us today Dr David morrens accordingly on April 16th 2024 the select subcommittee announced the subpoena for Dr morren for documents related to the covid-19 pandemic specifically those found on his personal email accounts which he had been using to communicate with other NIH officials and Eco Health president Dr Peter dasak government officials hiding from We the People is not the American way the select subcommittee proceeded to conduct an extensive review of the communications and documents produced under subpoena by Dr morren the information contained in the these 30,000 pages of emails are deeply concerning and in my opinion reflects poorly upon Dr morrens and the office of the National Institute of allergy and infectious disease under Dr F’s leadership and the NIH under Dr Francis Collins Unfortunately today we released a staff memo outlining the evidence gathered we have evidence that Dr morren purposefully evaded public transparency required by the Freedom of Information Act by intentionally using a personal email account for official business we have evidence that Dr moren’s unlawfully deleted government records and may have engaged with the NIH foa Foya office Freedom of Information Act office to assist this illegal action we have evidence that Dr moren’s rely acted as an intermediary between Dr dashek and Dr fouchy and we have evidence that Dr morren took affirmative steps to assist Dr desac so that Eco Health could have its Grant reinstated after it was spent suspended under the Trump Administration and improved by NIH leadership Dr morens it’s unfortunately looks like you were not truthful in your interview with us during that interview you may not have been under oath however you were reminded by select subcommittee councel that your answers were subject to criminal prosecution pursuant to Title 18 section 10001 of the United States code another words lying in that interview before us would be a crime when I asked if you understood that requirement you said you did today we may be able to find out where the truth lies is it in your testimony or is it in your emails we recently had the president of Ecco Health Alliance Dr Peter dashak before the select subcommittee for a hearing and we produced an extensive report outlining the wrongdoing and bad faith actions taken by Eco health and its president just two weeks after these investigative measures took place NIH recommended that Eco Health be immediately debarred from receiving federal dollars Dr morren provided non-public government information to Dr dashek including internal deliberations and Communications about Ecco Health occurring at the highest levels of NIH this is not just a one-way Street we also found that Dr moren’s disseminated information from Eco Health on behalf of Eco Health to top NIH officials in fact we even uncovered an email from Dr morren to Dr daak asking if he would get a kickback after the the Eco Health Grant was reinstated after the funding to Eco Health was paused in 2020 Dr morn advocated for them to have their Federal funding reinstated assisted Eco Health in receiving that funding provided Eco Health with non-public information in order to help get that funding reinstated and then requested a kickback you know joking about the kickback or not the entire process is wholly unacceptable and I wish that was the full extent of it but it’s not frankly some of the documents we received from Dr morren were difficult to read I can’t imagine saying some of the things let alone putting them in writing the select subcommittee uncovered Communications in which Dr morrens acted inappropriately and entirely unsuitable for a member of the Public Health Service who receives a taxpayer funded paycheck these are just some of the unfortunate and unpr professional findings the select subcommittee has made during our investigation it’s very disturbing to witness this type of behavior from Dr fal’s senior advisor but the evidence is clear and overwhelming Dr fal’s ni Aid was unfortunately less pristine than so many including the media would have had us all believe you Dr morren you reported directly to Dr fouchy you sered served as his senior advisor for more than two decades did your boss know about this Behavior did he condone it did he try to stop it did he participate in it that we don’t know but given the breath of this investigation we continue our work to ensure that we thoroughly review each document produced no stone will be left unturned put simply Dr mors you have a lot to answer for the American people that we represent deserve honest answers we all do today I hope we can further our quest for information into the government’s response to covid-19 and provide the American people with honest answers about the actions taken by Personnel at the National Institutes of Health during this time especially at the leadership levels Dr morren you will be sworn in today and your answers will be under oath and I strongly suggest you tell the truth which I’m sure I don’t need to advise you on that I will remind you that you are testifying today under a subpoena the terms of the subpoena require you to stay until the chair excuses you I look forward to a robust and on-topic discussion today thank you and I’d now like to recognize ranking member Ruiz for the purpose of making an opening statement thank you Mr chairman for decades our federal public health and scientific institutions have diligently upheld a legacy of respect and decorum in their work to advance the public interest and Within These institutions thousands upon thousands of federal employees have reported to work every day with the goal of promoting our scientific Enterprise and ensuring that every American can lead the healthiest life possible as an Emergency Physician and public health expert I hold the legacy of scientific advancement to safeguard human health in the highest regard and through my tenure in Congress including as a member of the Energy and Commerce committee’s health subcommittee I have championed legislation to invest in our federal scientific and public health Workforce so that they can carry forward this crucial work but there are times when individuals stray from this Legacy and conduct themselves in a manner that is Unbecoming of the thousands and thousands who strive to uphold the respect and decency that has come to be known of our federal scientific and public health Workforce and leaders and today we will be hearing from one of the these individuals Dr morren for nearly a year the select subcommittee has been reviewing your conduct and what we have found is deeply troubling to me in internal documents you produced to the select subcommittee you on multiple occasions alluded to the deletion of official emails an act that likely constitute the destruction of federal records and frequently you blurred the line between your official duties and your personal viewpoints including by communicating about official business on your personal email address with individuals who have pending interests before your agency and by representing yourself as a federal official in the signature of your personal email correspondence and while it is not a violation of the law to do so you disparaged other members of the scientific Community with language that is Unbecoming of a represent ative of the federal government what troubles me most about your conduct Dr morrens is the extent to which it is so willingly betrays Decades of dedication diligence and decorum from the thousands of federal scientists and public health workers who came before you who have served alongside you and who will serve on into the future and that is why appropriate accountability for your actions is appropriate it is not anti-science to hold you accountable for defying The public’s trust and misusing official resources to the contrary taking your misconduct seriously is about ensuring that Americans myself included can continue to expect the highest degree of professionalism from our Premier scientific institutions as we have since their Inception now with all that in mind I want to take a moment to make sure the record is clear on one thing at the outset of this hearing while accountability for instances of misconduct is essential to ensuring The public’s continued trust in our federal institutions and their use of taxpayer dollars Dr moren’s testimony today is not a breakthrough moment in actually understanding the actual origins of the covid-19 pandemic because the fact of the matter is that as of today the origins of the novel Corona virus remain inconclusive and if the select subcommittee wants to actually shed a light on the answers to this question then we need to take an objective look at all the various Pathways by which SARS K2 could have emerged be they in a lab or in nature now before we hear from the witness let me just conclude by saying it is my hope Dr morrens that today you will offer some humility and remorse for your actions which are a stain on the legacy of your colleagues at niad and and throughout the federal government at the same time it is my hope that the members of this select subcommittee while appropriately critical of your actions will treat you with the same decency and respect that we expect that we expected of you as a federal employee and Steward of the public trust so let us model the same behavior here today that we have come to expect of our federal Workforce thank you and I yield back thank you our witness today is Dr David morren senior Scientific Advisor to the director at the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases pursuant to committee on oversight and accountability rule 9g the witness will please stand and raise his right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth truth so help you God thank you let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative the select subcommittee certainly appreciates you for being here today Dr morren and we do look forward to your testimony uh Dr morren pursuant to house rules and committee practice Witnesses appearing before the select subcommittee are given the opportunity to make initial presentation summarizing their testimony after opening statements by the chair and ranking member which we have just done Dr morren it is our understanding through your Council that you have declined to provide an opening statement is that correct okay let the record reflect that the witness has declined the opportunity to provide an opening statement we will therefore proceed directly with member questions so I now recognize myself for questions on on January 18 Dr morren you sat for a transcribed interview with us while not sworn in you were advised by Council that title 18 section 10001 applied to that testimony and if you made false statements you could be subject to criminal prosecution do you recall that your microphone’s not on I don’t think yeah do I keep it on or only when I talk whenever you’re talking yeah okay sorry I I remember you telling me I think what you’re referring to is telling me that um even though I wasn’t under oath I was bound to tell the truth is that what you said yes and you could be subject to criminal prosecution yes you told me that okay today you are under oath and we will be comparing your statements today that to those you gave previously the majority of my questions today will be simple yes or no questions on April 21 2021 you wrote I can either send stuff to Tony fi on his private email or hand it to him at work or at his house did you ever send information related to covid-19 to Dr fal’s personal email I don’t remember if I did I may have but I certainly told him some things that he asked me to tell him about the situation with Peter thank you on May 13th 2021 you wrote that you connected a reporter to Dr fouchy Via your secret back Channel what back channel did you have for Dr fouchi well all these terms like secret back Channel and um the other one you mentioned were just jokes just you know uh jokes that I made in in dealing with Peter because he was under death threats and was very depressed and it was sort of the the group of people who were Peter’s friends were trying to cheer him up by making snarky jokes and euphemisms that were um you know not true but there was no back channel the back channel was um uh you know the fact the the back channel to Tony was the same one that it applies to everybody and may I say which is which is what well I’m going to tell you um okay there there’s a um Tony does not want me to connect anybody to him directly and um with one exception a couple of weeks ago um I never did but the back channel was a regular channel within government where if somebody wanted to talk to Tony I would tell them um we have a regular process here it’s called odam office of director am group the the the Inner Circle and the request to do something it would be to talk to Tony or to give a talk or whatever would go to this group and they would meet in person with Tony every morning and say um you know we got a message that so and so wants to talk to you or so and so wants to um you wants a something from you and then he would decide usually write there um I was never involved in that um uh at least not in recent years I used to go to those meetings many years ago but um so is that the channel you’re referring to yes that’s the channel it’s not really a back Channel but I’m being you know making snarky comments it’s a it’s a wellestablished still functioning Channel I guess it’s still functioning but certainly before I was put out a administrative leave that channel was um still operating and it’s the way things were done so there was a connection you said just in this statement now you said there was a connection a couple weeks ago that you did not do what was that I think I don’t remember the details but I think it was somebody maybe maybe Jerry kersch who’s a former NIH Institute director wanted to talk to Tony and I think I said something like because he used to be a director he knows Tony personally and I think I said something like um you can just talk to him directly you don’t have to go through me okay in in addition to your Gmail do you also have a proton mail account um I do yes on January 18 you testified that you did not conduct official business via personal email Dr morens did you ever conduct official business via your personal email well I I I didn’t do anything that I thought was official business I understand now that there is some discrepancy between what I thought and what y’all may think about what’s official business but may I back up and tell you about this whole Gmail thing since Gmail versus nihil and um uh record destruction and foas seem to be um the most important thing you’re interested in rightly so um I’ve had a Gmail account for many years and I don’t know how long I’ve had the proton account but it’s for a while uh which I almost never i al never Ed the proton account but I did use the Gmail account and um at some and also I should say that going back to at least 2010 if not or I I’m sorry going back to at least 2013 and possibly to 2010 the IT people in my Institute put one icon on my government phone in which emails and Gmail were fused that is to say I had a blue icon that said mail and if I got a mail every morning I would get up and do email you know open up my NIH emails and Gils fused knowing they were fused but I didn’t think it was a problem because I could usually tell whether a mail I was looking at was uh Gmail or government mail and I also knew how to go into my um uh phone and do a few clicks and things and find out if I needed to find find out or I could go to my Gmail on the computer where there wasn’t that Fusion so anyways I had I have there’s a longstanding problem with Fusion of Gmail and email for me Dr morren I I will tell you I I I can uh I can understand that I have non-official emails on a separate phone that are fused or I can separate them but not my official ones and that doesn’t an account for telling people that you’re doing official business with that that they should contact you on your Gmail that’s true I just I was just to and especially to avoid Foya and to be able to potentially delete things you don’t want in the New York Times which was your comment on January 18 you testified no when asked if you ever deleted anything from your official account that could be considered a federal record Dr morren are you aware that the destruction or attempted destruction of federal records carries a potential punishment of both imprisonment and a fine I was not aware of that and I was not aware that anything I deleted like emails was a federal record because we have Federal records training uh periodically and the training um you know that I recall we received um defined a federal record in a very different way than you may be thinking of it none of it defined was defined as an email well that may be something to look into is what your training looks like when it comes to Federal records because it’s far different from mine on October 5 2021 you wrote Peter I just got news that a Foya picked up an email I sent you saying Tony commented that he was brain dead I deleted that email but I now learn that every email I ever got since 1998 is captured and will be turned over whether or not instantly deleted on June 28th 2021 you wrote Peter dashek emailed me and Tony congratulating Tony on standing up for science that email fell into the hands of the congressman probably via foyer of someone who didn’t delete it as I did as I did delete all of Peter’s emails and others related to origin mine was erased long ago I verified that today and I feel pretty sure Tony was too Dr Warr did you ever delete or attempt to delete a federal record no but let me explain why it seems to be discrepant you can’t delete an email from NIH um you know from an NIH computer system they’re all retained and can be accessed for any purpose including a Foya now I don’t know what they normally do whether when NE Foya is um uh is required whether they how far back they go or whatever but it’s my understanding that U if they want to they can go back um all the way to the beginning maybe even to I came to NIH in 1998 and um at that time when we came to in uh there in 199 when I came there in 1998 we were instructed to delete emails um and or to move them into PST files frequently because they Jam the computer and so I got into the habit of um every morning um you know looking at all my emails EMS and when I say email I mean NIH email um looking at my NIH emails and um some of them can be dis sense with quickly and then just deleting them other ones that I would need to um keep or thought I might keep would be moved into a PST file so that my inbox wouldn’t crash and um and I must say dep based on my understanding of what a federal record was I truly don’t think I have ever seen a federal record in 26 years of being at NIH and if I’m wrong about that um I apologize because I it just never dawned on me I tried I went to the i’ I’ve done work at the National Archives and at one point about 10 or 15 years ago I contact a record person a records person lady and said you know I have some documents that could be something the National Archives would want and she said no I don’t think so you can destroy it and I didn’t destroy it I still have it there’s a difference between the federal archives and your day-to-day work as a federal employee employed by the American people you seem to know a lot about Foya you investigated Foya you talked to the people that Implement Foya uh and you need to know if you didn’t that it is uh a federal offense if you even attempt to delete something that would be considered for the Federal record I now recognize the ranking member Dr ree from California for five minutes of questions thank you when I was named ranking member of the select subcommittee I made a commitment to keep an open mind about how the pandemic started because understanding whether the novel Corona virus emerged from a lab or from nature is essential to better preventing and preparing for future Public Health threats and to better protecting the American people unless and until we see specific evidence on the origins of SS K2 the scientific process requires that we examine all possible hypothesis with objectivity which is why I have concerns Dr morrens that you appear to have frequently denigrated and dismissed the gravity of this deductive process in emails reviewed by the select subcommittee you described laboratory related origin theories as conspiracy theories and have said that considering these theories is quote unquote wasting time and quote unquote being crazy uh well you have every right to evaluate the available evidence and to reach your own conclusion regarding the origins of the novel Corona virus the maligning of other viewpoints by someone in your position undermines scientific discourse and reflects poorly on the research institution at which you served and for the record I want to make it abundantly clear that select subcommittee Democrats take seriously the charge of examining the various Pathways by which SARS cov2 came to be including the possibility that it emerged from a lab it is not our position that thoughtfully and objectively exploring these possibilities is quote unquote wasting time or quote unquote being crazy in fact two of the six agencies instructed by President Biden to take an objective look have found one with low confidence and the other with moderate confidence that it could have possibly have been a lab but let me remind everybody too that four of the others with low confidence uh believe that it came from animal uh transmission so it is still and conclusive but to the contrary it is in the advancement of ensuring that our nation and the global Community are in the strongest position to prevent and prepare for future novel virus and pandemic so Dr morren with that in mind let me ask you is it your view today that all laboratory related origin theories of covid-19 are conspiracy theories no sir and it is your and is it your view that evaluating lab related or theories is wasting time and being crazy no so can I ask what has changed your perspective on these matters I don’t think my perspective has changed and I discussed this in my previous in in in the I’m referring to thinking that they’re crazy or a waste of time has that changed or do you still think that they’re crazy were they were made uh when I was thinking I was communicating in in private off off the government record not as a government employ employe but as a private citizen and it was the same thing of dealing with Peter and these people of being snarky and sort of making you know it was the coin of the realm to try to cheer Peter up with snarky comments and often profane comments I apologize for that I never thought I shouldn’t do that and I never thought it would be um entered you know but put put forward in front of the American people I shouldn’t have done that obviously I I recognize that I was trying to help a friend by cheering him up with black humor and things like that I never thought it was crazy I did as you said I did believe from very early on that the evidence suggested that the virus arose from bats and the evidence also suggested to me that the possibility of a lab leak or an engineering of the virus was extraordinarily low but if anybody re a reasonable person thought or disagreed with me and thought that it merited um further investigation it should I mean you know we I mean I’m only one scientist there are other scientists there are public officials who want to understand all this um of course if there’s a reasonable belief um out in the public domain that a lab leque occurred um efforts to find evidence of that should continue now an important aspect of the scientific process is acknowledging what the available evidence does and does not show us and so I want to be clear that while I maintain an open mind to the various possibilities by which SARS ky2 may have come to be no evidence provided to the select subcommittee through our probe into federally funded research has demonstrated that the work performed under the niad grant to Echo Health Alliance including at the Wuhan Institute of virology led to the creation of SARS K2 the select subcommittee possesses no evidence demonstrating that any of the virus is studied under the grant could even possibly have been the progenitor virus so with 6 months remaining this Congress it is my hope that we take an objective forward-looking approach to understanding Co 19’s Origins and with that I thank you and I yield back now recognize Miss Mal takas from New York for five minutes of questions thank you Dr morren you used your personal email to conduct official niad business and you shared non-public information with Eco Health an organization that was vying for federal dollars from uh your agency given your position and experience you knew that this was against foyer regulations you even indicated it in many of the emails um in your personal Gmail can you explain why you chose to bypass official channels and how do you how do you justify that well let me go back to the very beginning um in early 2020 Peter dashak who’s been a personal friend of mine for almost 20 years I’ve had government interactions with him that are would be on my NIH email but almost all my interactions with him for years have been personal as a friend um and suddenly he was getting death threats credible death death threats and his wife and his two daughters are getting credible death threats um and the FBI was investigating um and they were publishing these death threat people which are said to be qanon I don’t even know who they are but um you know they were marching outside his house and they were sending threatening things an Anthrax powder envelope was mailed to him and um it it just freaked everybody why did you choose to use personal email that’s because that was not government business what happens to a private citizen in a death threat situation in my mind is not government business well it is government business if you are advising him you’re advocating on his behalf you’re editing editing things that letters that he wanted to send to NIH you did all that on personal email correct I don’t remember but if if I did it’s that I shouldn’t have done that that’s wrong it is wrong and that’s why we’re asking the question because uh you were using it for official business and and that’s what we’re trying to understand why why were you trying to hide this from members of Congress from the government from the public should it have been a freedom information law it does seem that you have a very cozy relationship with Peter daik you indicated that he was a good friend um I have to I mean I just I have to after reading this email from exhibit 6 on August 27 2020 after uh NIH was awarded a $7.5 million Grant to Eco Health Alliance uh you wrote to him and you asked do I get a kickback too much f*cking f o k i n g money do you deserve it all question mark let’s discuss would you like to explain um that’s typical black humor between between people like Peter and me and other folks who show up in these emails and he responded saying thanks for the kind words and of course there’s a kickback period you think that’s appropriate behavior between NIH somebody who works for ni Aid to a grante tee who just received $7.5 million from the government my my question before I run out of time is have you ever received any compensation from Peter daik or Eco health no have you ever received any compensation from any entity outside of your employer ni Aid compens I it depends I don’t know what the definition of compensation have you ever received any I a pension okay you have a pension not not government related I’m asking specifically because this you have to ask that question when you put it in writing asking him for a kickback you know let me let me there’s two parts to your question let me answer um all of this stuff was a bunch of snarky jokes and um I think you know we all knew that I don’t think any of us think it’s a funny joke I mean you are representing the United States government you’re representing an agency and you’re asking a grantee if they do I get a kickback I I believe do you deserve it all let’s discuss dot dot dot so I’m going to ask one more time remind you your under did you ever receive any money from Peter daik Eco health or anybody else outside of your employer ni Aid or the federal government directly no ma’am with the exception of early after I joined NIH I had a a private Corporation and uh you know in which I used to do Consulting and shortly after I got to NIH I realized there would always be a conflict okay um and that Corporation has been silent for 20 years now no no income okay thank you very much I yield back and let me let me may I say one more thing yes um those um I’ve already apologized for making snarky and profane comments but I made them thinking that they were made uh on my G my private email uh in a in a manner that was just between a small group of friends and would never end up where it’s ended up it’s embarrassing to me I shouldn’t have done it but you know I I accept that I did I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry thank you now recognize Miss Dingle from Michigan for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman I I have to say something as we start this just that for 15 months under the guise of investigating the pandemic’s origins my Republican colleagues have been probing our federal scientific and public health institutions and while Republicans probe is not meaningfully right now at this point we have not meaningfully Advanced the American public’s understanding over the origins of SARS K2 it I I do believe that people are always looking for the partisan instead of taking an actually serious look at the various ways in which the virus could have emerged in a lab or in in nature and this to investigation has really been about trying to blame pin the blame on ni and IAD for the covid-19 pandemic but to be perfectly clear I take seriously the ation of unauthorized disposition of NIH email records by you Dr Moren and uh so so I have your statements Dr Mor’s in the email show a disdain for the Freedom of Information Act are really discording just very concerning and you say and you’re answering of the questions that you did it as black humor but I don’t think that you use black humor and hide the comments that you’re trying to do on personal email I think your conduct shows a blatant disregard for accountability to the taxpayers who fund nad’s work and quite frankly I it it really is disturbing Dr Mar do you have any regret for the way in which you conducted yourself and the way it has reflected upon NAD yes I do and do you realize that there are thousands of employees who have worked alongside you at both nyad and NIH who are now left to deal with the ramification ramifications of your misconduct and its impact on the agencies well it that that might happen is very bothersome to me and I I really of of almost everything that’s happening I really regret that I’m very loyal to NIH they’ve been good to me um and I have nothing good to say about the system at NIH and that I may have brought embarrassment to them by my actions and my statements is it’s just something I’m I’m very as shamed of um I can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube I just hope you’re going to be very careful as you are telling us what the facts are because I’m very disturbed by other people that may be thrown under the bus in some of the Wy statements that you made on your personal statements and that you take accountability and don’t lay blame on people who it’s very hard for us to get to the truth truth maybe that’s the way for me to say it ma’am I’m I’m I’m here to answer all your questions and tell you the truth and any question you want to ask me I’ll do my best to answer it to the to the fullest of my knowledge I I think I’m just going to close here and say that the NIH and the National Archives and Records Administration have taken to investigate these matters and I want and share my colleagues desire from expeditious completion of their evaluation and appropriate next steps to hold you accountable but in the meantime I want everyone to keep in mind that although Republicans have tried to read into your emails for proof that Federal officials somehow sparked the covid-19 pandemic there simply is no evidence of it there’s a critical distinction as I’ve said in recent hearings I will always support holding Federal grantees and public servants to the highest standards of professional Integrity but I worry that we are once again blurring the lines between professional misconduct and the separate question of the origins of covid-19 and I hope that we do not conflate these issues and I think what you’ve done has significantly contributed to that thank you and I yield back now recognize the chairman of the full committee Mr comr from Kentucky for five minutes of questions thank thank you Mr chairman on May 16th we heard from your boss Dr Lawrence toac regarding some of your emails and avoiding the Freedom of Information Act and I’m sure as you’ve already uh testified you’re aware that deleting Federal records is a crime and as you’ve said you previously testified that uh you did not delete any federal records but on February 24th 20121 you wrote quote I learned from our Foya lady here how to make emails disappear after I’m foed 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 end quote and the next day on February 25th 2021 you wrote quote but I learned the tricks last year from an old friend Marge Moore who heads our Foya office and also hates foas end quote yes or no is Marge Moore the Foya lady you were referring to uh she was at the time I believe she’s retired since then did the NIH foia office instruct you on how to delete emails or avoid Foya no on October 25th 2021 another scientist wrote quote David is concerned about the privacy of text and other messages from his cell phone to you and me because he has been using a government phone this came from Tony end quote sir did you ever have any conversations with Dr fouchy regarding using personal phone or email to communicate with Dr Dass I don’t remember it it’s possible you know I probably wouldn’t have remembered and I don’t remember it he and I usually never talked about that kind of stuff it would be very unusual if it happened on January 18th you testified that you did not have any conversations with Dr fouchy regarding Eco Health on October 25th 2021 you wrote quote Peter from Tony’s numerous recent comments to me they trying to protect you in quote you meaning Eco health and Dr dassk Dr BRS did you ever have any conversations with Dr fouchy regarding Eco Health well the ones you just mentioned I don’t have any recollection of that no recollection no recollection no let me but let me just say what I do remember is one time in a face-to-face meeting um he referred alluded to some stuff that was in the Press I don’t even think he said what it was but it was about uh I assumed it was about Peter’s grants and press reports about it and the the ending of the Grant and I said to him sort of out of the blue um uh guessing what he was really thinking I said to him Tony I know you would have never been involved in in getting rid of that Grant and he didn’t respond he just sort of looked at me and um um so so so Dr fouchi was always a big defender of Eco health and their uh well their right to receive federal funding I can’t speak for him I think he had great respect for them and when the grant problems came about um um I think he was troubled by it um in fact I’m I just let me just I just thought of something that i’ forgotten to say um at some point somebody it may not have been Tony but it might have been Hugh upen Claus somebody said to me you know Peter’s His Own Worst Enemy because he made some mistakes on that Grant I would say that’s a a factual statement on on April 21st 2021 you wrote that Dr fouchy is quote too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble end quote on June 16th 2020 you wrote we’re all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns and if we wouldn’t put them in emails and if we found them we’d delete them now did you ever have conversations with Dr fouchy regarding deleting emails I don’t remember any such thing don’t remember no sir and I it would be very I Tony and I don’t have those kind of conversations did you did you ever delete any official records not to my knowledge I mean but again we’re at the issue of defining what’s a what’s a what’s a federal record I I I deleted a lot of emails I do it every day um but they’re in my mind they’re trivial things not related to government business in response to my questions Dr back said he absolutely agreed with every compliance action the NIH took against Dr dasic and Eco health and over the past two weeks both Eco health and Dr dasic have been suspended from receiving Federal funding finally and proposed for dearment do you agree with nih’s actions against Eco Health you know I don’t know the details about I’ve never seen the Grant I don’t know what’s in it I I can’t really speak to that but I can say I’ve known Peter dashek for almost 20 years and I in my personal opinion he’s an honorable decent so so have you had conversations with Dr dassk about this recent suspension um not a conversation I knew about it he he sent me an email or something was a so they occurred over email H the the kind you you and Dr dassi commun communicated via email about his dispart I I should say Gmail not not NIH email he doesn’t send you know he he was sending NIH stuff to my NIH email for a long time and I kept telling him don’t do that and that’s how this this Gmail thing started he sent me in 20120 he sent um a message to me um on my uh government NIH email and I forget what it was maybe I never knew what it was but eventually that email was Foyd okay so wait a second can can I finish eventually this email was foed and Peter contacted me and and said you know some friend you are I send you an email with all my personal stuff and it ends up in the newspaper and that really struck me that was a turning point for me because he was under death threats and I and I get it I get it Mr Mr chairman if I may just one last yes or no question have you had any conversations with Dr diic about this suspension yes or no the suspension the suspension of the disbarment the suspension not conversation but he has sent me an email with that’s emails a conversation your conversation via email then you’ve had a conversation via email with Dr diic well if you call it a conver conversation yes it’s you know we didn’t talk about it but he just sent it to me and I read it or not that’s all thank you he’ll back now recognize Miss Ross from North Carolina for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman um Dr Moren I I really take very seriously these allegations of misconduct and the unauthorized disposition of NIH email records your blatant disregard for transparency obligations under Foya and the manner in which you conducted yourself including disparaging language toward others of differing perspectives um not only call into question your judgment but also your character and on a larger scale they inflict serious damage on public trust for the entire science scientific Enterprise because you don’t when you work for the federal government you’re not just working for yourself you’re working for the people and you’re working with your colleagues since the start of the pandemic we have seen a decline in the Public’s confidence in science and public health one study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that between April 2020 and October 2023 the number of Americans who reported that they had a great deal of trust in scientists fell from six fell by 16% from 39% to 23% and while proliferation of misinformation about covid-19 has certainly fueled this decline when the American public sees that one of the federal government’s own scientists was potentially trying to hide their work-related conversations from the public by using a personal email that will only lead to further distrust in our nation’s scientific community and this decline in the confidence in the scientific Enterprise has rippled and had health health effects that we’re seeing even now for example we’ve seen the effect of the distrust in science specifically within our vaccine records a recent survey from the anber anenberg public policy Center found that the proportion of respondents who did not believe in vaccines approved that are that are approved in the United States it it doubled from nine or nearly doubled from 9% to six 16% between April 2021 and the fall of 2023 and with new variance of the Corona virus fewer and fewer people are getting their booster shots as we hold today’s hearings the United States is at the precipice of losing our measles elimination status due to repeated outbreaks of the disease that have popped up across the country from Florida to Ohio to Missouri to California this is especially concerning as 250,000 kindergarteners Nationwide haven’t received their updated measles immunization leaving them unprotected from this deadly disease that is not your fault but what I am saying is when people don’t trust scientists they don’t trust the science so you’ve answered this question in another way but do you agree that your conduct as a scientist working for the federal government betrayed the highest ethical standards that are expected of you and are expected to maintain the trust of the American people well that’s a several part statement and uh let me let me answer it by saying um I’ve always thought of myself as an ethical person it’s important to me to uh tell the truth and do decent things and that’s why I stuck my head up to defend Peter when he was under death threats obviously um and I thought all these things I was doing that were on my you know my private email my my private Gmail were outside the domain of my official job at private citizen um but I’ve obviously made mistakes I’ve mixed up emails and Gils and um and that’s that’s caused me to do all the things you mentioned but bring discredit on myself and on on the government I don’t know what to say I apologize I regret that I think it’s I wish I could take it back but I can’t thank you um it’s imperative for the American public to trust the scientific community in order to best protect our nation’s Public Health we’re seeing in real time the consequences when trust declines as members of the select subcommittee it’s critically important that we work to rebuild that trust in public health and science your actions have not helped these efforts thank you and I yield back and now recognize Dr Miller Meeks from Iowa for five minutes of questions well thank you Mr chairman and I thank you Dr morrens for testifying before the select subcommittee this afternoon and if I can I’m just going to follow up uh for a question that you were asked by Dr malis in reference to whether or not you received any funding or money uh in relationship to the amount of funding uh going to an Ecco Health Grant so to expand on that did you receive any gift or anything of value um during that exchange from Dr daaka Eco Health what one of Dr dhx’s um scientists a guy named Kevin well I shouldn’t mention his name it doesn’t matter but um he he so the the the Eco Health people have their own private it’s like a baseball cap and um I made a comment that that’s a really cool hat and um and he said I have an exra one this one’s old and it’s got some stains on it I’ll just give it to you so we did well thank you for that and uh Dr Moren I I can understand how very difficult it is for you to be here uh you’ve had an illustrious career you went to undergrad and medical school at a very prestigious University I was on faculty at the University of Michigan you’re dual board certified which is not an easy thing to do uh to have dual board certification uh as a public health servant uh and a captain in the Public Health Service uh you have been on the Forefront on some very important diseases uh both furology and other infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases such as Ray syndrome and kisaki’s disease so can you tell us just a very briefly how difficult is it to get into Medical School especially in the 70s and ‘ 80s um I I don’t know it’s uh I was uh was it easy to get in med school pardon is it easy to get into medical school well it was never easy and particularly for somebody like me when I applied to medical school the only science course I’d ever had was ninth grade General biology and do you know what Alpha Omega Alpha is I believe that’s an honorary um uh an honorary like fraternity or Society for medical students National medical Honor Society is it easy to get into Alpha Omega Alpha I don’t believe it is is it more prestigious to get in in the third year or the fourth year I don’t know okay um do you know what a kilt is a kilt yes sir a like a Scottish kilt yes yes okay and do you know what a uh truis is say again it’s a Roman Garb such as Roman soldiers wear um sort of like a skirt I don’t I don’t think I know that word okay well I left home at 16 to put myself through medical school I was the last person entered my medical school class at the University of Texas in 1982 the last person by the third year I was 12th out of 214 students Alpha mea Alpha in the third year I think Merit is extraordinarily important a truis is a skirt a kilt is a skirt I don’t think William Wallace was any less a hero in Scotland because he wore a kilt nor do I think Roman soldiers were any less Fierce intelligent or strategic because they wore a skirt now although I have had um differences political and scientific differences with Dr wilinsky I’ve disagreed with her on infection acquired immunity I have disagreed with her on school closures I have disagreed with her on the lack of transparency of adverse outcomes from covid-19 vacc so I’m having a hard time understanding why in 2021 I would have expected it when I was in medical school in 1982 but why in 2021 and I can understand the embarrassment of having personal emails shared but you were doing work-related stuff on your personal emails that you would have commented in an email Dr fouchy got R Rochelle wilinsky her job as CDC director by lobbying for her to Ron Clan well she does wear a skirt I poured a little cold water on her but he was underturned in thinking that she is the cat’s pajama so let me just say am I the cat’s pajama do you know how many women sit on this subcommittee uh I do you know what it take for any of these women to get elected to congress because I find your comments to be disgusting you had an illustrious career an amazing track to get to where you are you’re trusted with one of the highest positions in government to combat public health crisises and instead of doing your job you’re too busy worrying about avoiding foas and challenging someone’s position because they happen to wear a skirt the American people deserve a whole lot better in their public servant we don’t need to worry about you’re trying to avoid foyers or what the quality of your mattress is quite frankly sir you should be ashamed of your character and embarrassed I am glad that you are and you should in fact apologize to this subcommittee to Congress and to our with that I yield may I apologize to you and the committee it’s a misogynistic statement and um you know it was the same snarky joking stuff but let me say I’ve been an ad sir that’s not a snarky joke that is an underlying behavior that indicates how you approach women and how you think of women and it’s disgusting time has expired now recognize Miss Tuda from Hawaii for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chair I want to Echo my colleague’s sentiment that your Behavior your mishandling of federal records and disregard for transparency obligations under the Freedom of Information Act are an affront to the taxpayers whose contributions fund this federal government and to whom we are all accountable including yourself in addition they cast a shadow on the legacy of the millions of federal workers who serve the public diligently and respectfully day in and day out I want to be very clear on this point your troubling M misconduct Dr morren is an anomaly not the norm nor and it is essential that you be held accountable for your misconduct so that the American people can remain confident that their taxpayer dollars are being invested in a federal Workforce that is committed to serving our nation responsibly and with the care that it deserves so let me ask you Dr morren do you feel any remorse for the way in which you handled the federal records that have been reflected on the members of federal Workforce who you have served alongside you know I’m sorry I’m getting a little Echo here and I’m not sure I’m hearing every word you say and I’m also do you feel any remorse for their handling of federal records and how it has reflected on our federal Workforce that serves alongside of you the Injustice you have done by making them look bad by your actions to the extent that I’ve do you feel sorry yes or no it’s a simple question of course I’ve said that already you feel sorry you apologize yes I do to the workforce the federal Workforce in which you have Now cast a Shad over yes so can you say that you will in fact apologize for betraying your shared obligation of serving the American taxpayers with the utmost respect for transparency and accountability that you let Americans down will you apologize for that you know ma’am I would not use the word betray um I’ve let them down um most of it was inadvertent making poor choices and not understanding all these rules and regulations but you know betrayal suggests a conscious act and I I never did that I have great respect for the federal Workforce I’ve I’ve been in federal government employment for 48 consecutive years um with lots of awards and accolades and I’ve never had a hint of Scandal so to to have so are you saying you’re proud of your behavior some of the behavior in which was reflected here today in terms of comments you make whether it be an official or non-official emails are you proud of this behavior is it up to the standards of the federal government and what taxpayers deserve no I’m not so shouldn’t this be a bit of a betrayal to the public the ones you took an oath to to make sure that you upheld your actions your decisions your comments I consider it a betrayal and we’ll agree to disagree on this I’m also disappointed uh Dr morren that someone in your position has taken such a Brazen approach to blurring the lines between your official duties in your personal Communications as has been discussed by this panel for example in your personal email correspondence including in your email signatures so this is not just something unintentional you identify yourself with your role at nyad and you frequently reference transferring correspondence from your official email address to your personal address including when discussing matters where niad is actively engaged in doing so you’re blur you’re blurring the lines between whether you are taking actions in your official capacity with the federal agency or in your individual capacity pursuant to your personal interest Dr morren did you ever conduct government business through your personal email account uh uh not intentionally and but it’s unintentionally or not did you conduct government business through your personal email account well some of the emails I’ve seen that you all provided um look pretty incriminating I I don’t know what they are I don’t remember them but yes it looks like I made a mistake on more than one occasion but it certainly wasn’t my intention to do that and let me also mistake or not though I’m I’m running short of time you admitting that you did official government business through your personal email from what you have heard and seen your definition of from heard today would you consider that to be official government business through your personal account I don’t know I mean I’d have to look at all the emails okay seems like in our discussion even talking with you here it sounds like you would agree with us that you have conducted government business through your personal account did you ever misuse official resources to advance your personal interest or take contrary actions to nad’s official policies or positions I’m sorry I’m getting I’m getting feedback here and I can’t did you ever misuse official resources to advance your personal interest or take an actions that were contrary to nad’s official position you know I’m not sure I know what that means but I you know if did you misuse resources I don’t think so did you ever take contrary opinions to niad contrary opinions contrary opinions okay clearly we have some miscommunications here but similar to my colleagues on this dis here I do believe you ow apology and you have given one to the federal Workforce but the bottom line is all Americans all taxpayers deserve an apology from you for your actions the way you’ve conducted yourself both in a professional manner and through your personal correspondence as well and with that chair I yield back now recognize Miss leco from Arizona for five minutes a question thank you Mr chair um I believe earlier today you said sir Tony meaning Tony fouchi does not want me to connect anything to him and when asked by my colleague did you use personal email for official business your answer was I didn’t think it was doing official business and then just now you said not intentionally let me read some of the emails the first email from you says P.S I forgot to say there is no worry about foas I can either send stuff to Tony on his private email or hand it to him at work or at his house he’s too smart to let colleag send him stuff that could cause trouble H next email from you said I suggested arthor tried to interview Tony meaning Tony fouchy directly and connected him to our secret back Channel he emailed Tony a few hours ago next email from you I forgot to clarify in my email yesterday that both my Gmail and phone calls are now safe text is not as it can be foad as can my great or government email so you and Peter Peter DK and others should be able to email me on Gmail only with the caveat that no other government employee is copied at a government address as all government emails are potentially foilable next email from you this is sent from my Gmail account please send all repes here to Gmail now there are things I can’t say except Tony is aware and I have and I have learned that there are ongoing efforts within NIH to steer through this with minimal damage to you Peter and colleagues and to NIH and niid next email Jerry my private Gmail account is where I sent this from after forwarding to myself from my NIH account please try to send only to my Gmail as we doing a couple weeks ago but I messed up a few times and sent them from my NIH account because on my phone the two are merged and then when you respond by hitting reply it goes to NIH after some recent issues I’m going to try to strictly use only my Gmail in these discussions then the next email I learned from our Foya lady here how to make emails disappear after I Foya but before the search starts so I think we are all safe but I deleted most of these earlier emails after sending them to Gmail next email with the help of our it folks I went over the whole computer and phone situation basically my Gmail is now safe from Foya this is thus it should be safe to communicate safely with you Peter and others as long as we use my private email gmail I ask you both that nothing in large letters cap letters gets sent to me except to my Gmail sir I believe you have lied here today to us to Congress when you say oh I didn’t know this I didn’t intentionally use my Gmail are you kidding me Dr morrens do you want to change your testimony no I don’t because I think that the the context you’re you’re all these there’s so many of these emails you just mentioned I can’t even remember them all but the context is that this Gmail communication thing was set up purely to deal with p with the personal things that were not government business with uh and and then other people Sir with all due respect how can you say that when you clearly and all these emails were intentionally avoiding Foya you said it in your own words sir well but so what let’s talk about what you mean by intentionally avoiding Foya I don’t consider that telling them don’t send me things because they could get foyer is intentionally avoiding foyer because those are personal things and with respect to my NIH email I couldn’t possibly avoid Foya because I had no control sir did you use in most of these emails your official signature it said David M Warren o d ni a i d ni I these were official well let me tell you something else I didn’t mention and you forwarded you forwarded from your NIH email to your personal email and you said it right in your email I learned only about a year ago that the fusion of my Gmail on my email and my email NIH email on my phone um had another side effect too and by the way I finally got it to to take that off to get rid of it so there’s no more Gmail email Fusion but after I asked them to take it off I realized that if a if a Gmail or NIH email came to me and I replied to it for some reason there was a default where the signature I had on gmail which said David moren’s of Bethesda Maryland or something didn’t go out but the NIH email went out I don’t know how that happened I didn’t do it consciously sir I’m sorry I I just don’t believe you and I yield back Dr morence my experience I just want to say I don’t know what defect you’re talking about when you get an email from one email you have to intentionally move it to another email it doesn’t automatically shift over to another email I’m sorry I don’t I now recognize Mr inum from Maryland for five minutes of questions thank you very much Mr chairman I want to thank you and the ranking member I mean if this were not laughable it would be laughable I don’t know what I’m watching I saw some of this in my office and got here a little while ago and caught the rest of it Mr Warren this is a tale out of some sort of movie and I’m not trying to particularly characterize you except that I can’t Define you I mean you seem to be here there and everywhere on these questions and I’m trying to get what your testimony is here to this body other than I don’t know I don’t remember I’m not sure much of your personal email account exchanges uh have been revealed as we all know by media Outlets across the country in recent months and many more have been turned over to this select committee and Dr morrens it appears that you yourself didn’t even follow your own guidance at least that’s what I’ve come to to believe here and you’ve conflated personal and professional matters on both your official and your personal email accounts that is correct isn’t it um I don’t exactly know what the word conflated means but mixed them up is that is that what it means well you want to take the Fifth Amendment I mean you don’t seem to remember anything and I just I find that amazing something does not seem right here it’s very unsettling to me and obviously to members of this committee we believe that every Federal grant applicant should have full and fair consideration that’s consistent with federal guidelines and I’m not sure that has occurred I just I don’t know what to make of this um so let me ask you since you are under oath what is it that you want this committee to know about these so many allegations that have been Herald at sent your way um I want this committee to know that however many mistakes I made and however bad they were I was trying to do the right thing I had a friend a personal friend who was um in danger of being murdered and his family being murdered and everything centered around that and uh I did what I could do and pretty soon this the Gmail thing which I thought was um desirable and legal getting personal stuff sir you lost from you lost me what does a friend of yours who was close to being murdered have to do with the way that you performed your duties I’m sorry I don’t understand your question could you I didn’t understand your answer you said I was dealing with a friend who was close to being murdered and then you went on to say something else I’m trying to connect them my U let me just repeat my reason for telling Peter and others to go to my Gmail is because Peter and and later Peter hotz and some others were under death threats and anything they sent me on my government email could end up in the public domain and and then I would be responsible for you know making their uh their Peril even worse does that make sense or can I explain it again go ahead all right um let me go back again what I said before when when Peter contact Peter dashak contacted me in early 2020 and let me know that an email that he had sent me to my government NIH email had ended up being published in a in a journal or something and that it was personally embarrassing to him I said to him as I said several times to him why are you sending it on my government email this is not government business it’s your personal thing about your um state of mind about your security Arrangements that if if no your address being published um if your security arrangements are known then people trying to kill you could make it you know could maybe do it and I felt responsible for that so I just Peter was very upset and I was upset too well Dr morren what else do you feel responsible for pardon what else do you feel responsible for you I’m sorry I’m getting this Echo here and I just should I turn off my microphone yeah you’re using my time let me ask you why didn’t you report any of this to the ethics office I I don’t know I didn’t uh I I don’t even know what our ethics office does but Peter certainly reported the F Peter reported it to the I’m not worried about Peter I’m talking about you Peter’s not here I just want to know if you thought this was ethically incorrect or improper why didn’t you report it to the ethics office what were you referring to is what being ethically improper well you just said you told you asked him why was he sending this to one email account when it should have gone to another one and you’re asking me whether I thought what he was doing was unethical what I was doing is unethical sir I think you’re going to be haunted by your testimony today and it’s unfortunate it’s all on the record and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to many of us certainly not to me and I don’t want to uh carried us on any further Mr chairman I’m going to yield back any time that I have remaining I thank you for the opportunity you now recognize Mr cloud from Texas for five minutes of questions thank you Mr chairman uh is this correct that this was your title the senior advisor to National Institute of allergy and infectious disease former director Dr Anthony fouchy it’s I think my I think my title is senior adviser to the director National Institute of allergy infectious diseases oh okay and and how long did you work with Dr fouchy or for him um 26 years and and you’d also consider him a personal F friend no I mean no you know he’s a he’s a colleague and Tony is a very you know private guy he doesn’t have a lot of I’ve never gone out with him to have a beer you mentioned Peter dosc is a personal friend for for 20 years is that correct I’ll be a little less than 20 years but somewhere in that range okay and you your statement today still is that you did not intend to avoid Foya yes sir in spite of these several emails we have saying otherwise is that correct I think it’s correct but I don’t I’m not there there’s some elements of this you know that I don’t think are being understood and you just said that you did no official business on your Gmail account is that correct I I tried to make sure I never did official business and that’s not what you just said a few minutes ago you you said you never did you said the purpose of this was for personal well to to to here’s here’s here’s an email from Peter to you attached as a single sheet with bullets explaining why Dr tavic was wrong and hopefully con convincing Folks at NIH to stop criticizing EA’s reporting compliance please don’t share this letter yet we’ll edit that and get it to NIH by Tuesday hopefully you replied Peter this is an excellent draft I will suggest some words thing tweets later today uh he said thanks for the comments David I’ll incorporate them today do you think that’s not official business I’d have to look at it I don’t know okay this is related eh EA’s Echo Health is that right yeah but I mean yes okay so this this is a an organization who got a government grant that you’re supposed to be overseeing right I don’t have any I don’t have any Grant oversight in well NIH NIH does but I’m sure and and you are the senior adviser to the head of right but I have no involvement in any grants in any aspect of any grants sure and I don’t know whether the what you’re referring to is a grant that was already funded or uh an application that a friend do you not see that it’s a conflict of interest for you to be advising someone who’s working to get a federal Grant on how they’re communicating and approaching and even suggesting tweet outline tweet revisions I think it would be a a conflict of interest as I understand it um helping some is that why you used your Gmail instead of your official mail for communication with Peter using my Gmail was a it was for a different purpose that was for a avoiding um more embarrassment and danger to him specifically as your email say avoiding Foya correct no well yeah you I guess you could say that avoiding him sending something that had nothing to do with NIH business but could be Foy it and embarrass him okay now there’s been this uh dialogue that you know You’re The One Bad Apple in a whole bunch uh before you know our last hearing the communication was Peter was the One Bad Apple out of a whole bunch uh who was the Foya lady that you mentioned I think Marg Moore margus and Margaret Mar okay what what instructions what tips did she give you about avoiding Foya well she gave me none about avoiding Foya that was a joke but what she did say to me was let me back up a little bit um you sure about that H you are you sure about that we subpoena her email too you know we can and we can call her to witness as well so make sure your test I’m telling you what I know and remember and it’s the truth as far as I know it um when Peter had do you think you’re the first employee that she gave Ado advice on how to avoid Foya she didn’t give me advice about how to avoid Foya let me let me you said she gave you advice and how to avoid that’s what I said because I was sort of so you were lying then but you’re telling us the truth now I wasn’t lying I was making a joke with Peter you know I I said something like I have a way to make it go away but that was just a euphemism may I tell you what she told me uh sure um I was worried because I was getting so many foyers I was worried that personal things were going to get into it so I went and talked to her and says how does this work because at that point in time I had no involvement in foyers what happened if if if I was going to be Foy the foyer office would notify me and say do we have your permission to do an a Foya investigation and I’d say yes and that’s the end of what I heard but I was worried that these personal things would get caught up in it so I asked her how it worked and she said well you really don’t have to worry about personal things because when there’s a foyer request we the foyer office negotiate to limit the scope of what they’re looking for to among other things make sure that inadvertent stuff doesn’t get in there you you said a comment earlier that concerned me you know the relationship between between your organization NIH and Echo Health should be one of oversight uh and you said to start off this hearing you said we all felt it was our job to cheer Peter up um I I’m just really concerned because Peter even admitted the last time that he did not do a good job of overseeing the grant that went to the Wuhan lab it’s clear that our government did not do a good job of overseeing Echo Health uh and and it’s to me speaks to the culture that is at an issue here when you think your job instead of oversight is to make sure that we’re cheering up the people we should be overseeing thank you chairman I yell back now recognize Dr McCormack from Georgia for 5 minutes of questions thank you Mr chair Dr Moren uh it’s become apparent now I’m no lawyer I’m a doctor but but just looking through what evidence we have and what we subed what we’ve gotten uh it’s become apparent that you and many employees at nah and IAD have been stonewalling and outright avoiding our subcommittee’s investigation not only is a violation of law as far as I’m understanding but it’s also Fosters a continual dist Trust of government and its officials and what we’ve been funding um last July this SE this select subcommittee discovered the initial evidence of your misconduct and reported to the National Archives and Records Administration and at the National Archives Direction NIH started an investigation into your use of personal email to conduct official business and the unlawful deletion of federal records interesting you talked about to avoid embarrassment I think that’s done just the opposite uh when the investigation began you are placed on paid administrative leave in simpler terms you have been continuing to receive your salary and your benefits but do not perform any official duties as far as we have been notified you have not been subject to any discipline or accountability to this point is that correct well I would say that being placed on administrative leave is a is a discipline because I love my job and I I would like to be back there doing work and it’s painful for me not to be able to work with my colleagues and may I also say that that investigation of me that you referred to for destroying documents exonerated me and said there’s no evidence I destroyed any documents okay and you probably have that you information yourself I have it I’m not going to ask about the status of the investigation because I think that’s inappropriate this time uh and I don’t think it would be appropriate for you to comment on ongoing investigation uh but I hope the sub commmittee receives the answers from the NIH as to the status of the investigation soon which we still have not received uh because we don’t just we don’t think that it’s appropriate to pay people who aren’t able to do a job at the time so I think we’re both wasting our time um in your emails recovered through Foya you boasted to Dr daik that you had a secret back Channel quote unquote uh to communicate with Dr fouchy uh that’s what we’ve seen so far we also have statements concerning the NIH niad and foa’s officer instruction on how to avoid document production through intentional misspellings of keywords to avoid triggering hits in automated search quiries in response to Foya requests and congressional oversight inquiries Dr Menin do you deny these statements you know I’m sorry I’m not sure I followed everything you said I’m also getting a little Echo from your side but uh let me move away from let me turn off the microph may I reclaim that time that I’m going to repeat please thank you uh we have statements concerning the NIH I had Foya officer instruction on how to avoid documents produ production through intern intentional sorry misspellings of keywords to avoid triggering hits on automatic search queries in response to foyer requests and congressional oversight inquiries that you had these secret back Channel ways to get a hold of fouchy that you are trying to avoid queries through Foya by misspellings and other things that’s what we have come to the conclusion on do you deny that micone microphone microphone oh I’m sorry I I think there’s some misunderstanding here the secret back Channel joking terminology to my knowledge was never about foas so you’re going to joke about back channels to fouchi and about misspellings on on uh queries that’s a joke not very funny to me I you know I would have to see this communication it’s confusing to me because I had no back Chann you know I could walk into Tony’s office and talk to him anytime I wanted that there’s no need to have a back Channel and I had face to-face meetings with him all the time so um you know the back Channel thing so you deny you deny these statements is what you’re saying I think there’s a mixup somewhere so you you deny it yes I guess I do okay Dr Ms we have you previous statement on Foya documents here chairman I request unanimous consent to submit these documents for the record without objection okay based on your answer you either lied to Congress or your transcribed interview or are lying here today uh this caused me to believe that your behavior a senior scientific adviser to the director of reflects much broader NIH and niad wide practice which really concerns me this select subcommittee must bring HHS and the agencies beneath the two heel in every way possible over the final seven months of this subcommittee uh I want to take a moment to thank the chairman and my colleagues for their leadership thus far we must earn back American people’s trust and confidence we must have full transparency and with that I yield Dr mors I’m going to take a little time to uh read some statements and ask some more questions on January 18 you were asked if you ever assisted in the drafting of Correspondence that Dr dashek sent to the National Institutes of Health regarding Eco Health’s terminated Grant you answered no on January 18 you were asked if you ever provided advice to do desic regarding his Grant termination you answered no in your Gmail on March 29 2001 you responded to Dr jazic with edits to a letter that he sent to the NIH uh on October 25 20121 you responded to Dr desik that you would edit uh an Ecco Health Press release regarding the grant termination uh on April 28th 2020 you responded to Dr zic with edits to an eoh Health press release regarding the grant termination on October 25 2021 you provided Dr daik with advice regarding preparing a timeline regarding Eco Health’s late year late five-year report submission on December 7 2021 you wrote to the chair of Ecco Health Board of Directors to quote put in a word end quote for Dr dashek did you ever advise Dr dashek on how to respond to NIH compliance actions yes or no how did what’s the word to compliance actions did you ever advise Dr dashek on how to respond to NIH compliance actions well what I did yes I did tell him multiple times that’s all I’m asking did you ever edit a letter Dr daek sent to NIH in response to a compliance action well I must have I don’t remember it but I saw I saw such a letter that uh I don’t know what it was but apparently I helped him do it but did you ever edit a press release that Dr daek issued in response to a compliance action did I send a press did you ever edit a press release that Dr daek issued in response to a compliance action must have but I don’t don’t remember it okay did you ever Advocate on behalf of Dr daik to Ecco Health’s board of directors I sent a letter to Nancy green the head of the board of directors um essentially saying you know my personal knowledge of Peter shall um shall I wait a minute go ahead um um this was in response to Peter saying you know the board is worried that about all these accusations get speak I could be fired can you tell the board that I’m a good person and you know as far as you know I’m an upstanding guy and I did that but as a private citizen not as a representing NIH thank you I now recognize Miss Green from Georgia for five minutes a questions thank you Mr chairman uh Dr Moren your emails have been quite interesting uh reading them has been uh pretty shocking on uh April 18th 20120 you wrote an email saying uh Peter daik emailed me and Tony congratul and 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 the origin when the started hitting the fan anyway the congressman got a copy of Peter D’s emails from someone at in NIH and he now wants to get any reply Tony and I or anyone else may have sent sent back to Peter mine was erased long ago I verified that today and I feel pretty sure Tony’s was too the best way to avoid Foya hassles is to delete all emails when you learn a subject is getting sensitive in any case there’s nothing here except opportunities H to hassle harass and huff and puff you really got into some opportunities you also wrote on June 16th 2020 you said the Foy is Dreadful and paranoia inducing uh in the old days we had to do them ourselves by hand I mean finding and printing out thousands of emails coming in and going out now they sometimes Foya text messages too many foas turn up thousands of pages of docs and of course most of meaningless 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’d delete them you wrote on February 24th 2021 you said you were right and I need to be more careful however as I mentioned once before I learned from our Foya lady here how to make emails disappear after I am Foyd 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 Dr Morin’s who’s your foyil lady is it Hillary Clinton thank you you’re welcome thank you for the humor um I think you know you said about 10 things there and my brain can’t keep them all in uh in my head but um I I think I’ve answered a lot of those questions that the the fo I told you who the Foy lady was I I told you what she told me I told you that I told the committee that it’s impossible to avoid a foia it’s impossible to to uh destroy an NIH document an email document well clearly clearly because we’ve we’ve got your emails and they’re they’re pretty shocking um I do I do appreciate humor as well but you do you do receive a taxpayer paycheck and um we when it comes to work emails there’s a lot of things that shouldn’t really by the way I if I understood what you just said let me just say that a lot of government uh emails come to my Gmail stuff from CDC my paycheck this is all related to your job though regardless of which email account like I said Hillary Clinton had a private server as well and she put a lot of things there and somehow they disappeared uh Dr Morin you also wrote on October 5th 2021 Peter I just got news that the Foya picked up an email I sent you saying that Tony commented he was brain dead jokingly of course however Ron Johnson is all over it and now after me Tony will be pissed rightfully so I deleted the email but I now learn that every email I ever got since 1998 is captured and will be turned over whether or not I instantly deleted it Gmail phone text I need to scrupulously rely on those exclusively on uh July 22nd 2020 this one was actually pretty interesting I am actually em bibing a double or is it a triple Martini at the moment not sure of the amount of eoh because I just poured until my elbow got soore but the olive at the bottom is hard to see no hot tub in my condo I tried to negotiate a Jacuzzi but they bulked and I caved in any case now that I am divorced what good is a hot tub or jacuzzi if I am lucky enough to find a girlfriend I will spring for a Jacuzzi upgrade my wine cooler get a mattress that will take more of a pounding and stop working so hard in the meantime I will work here work at my job of trying to make the boss look good in the summer of 2020 um covid was raging and I personally believe that uh Peter daik at Ecco Health had a lot to do with the fact that covid was raging because experimenting on viruses that turn into um basically a monster that has murdered millions and millions of of people is something to take very seriously I have one more question for you uh this is this is where you emailed and talked about Kickbacks um this was on o August 27th 2020 after you were talking about covering up for Tony uh you said uh of course there’s a kickback and then you also referenced a kickback on August 27th 2020 you said uh do I get a kickback too much f*cking money do you deserve it all let’s discuss have you made any money off of Eco Health off of covid-19 and off of um Co vaccines Dr Marin then what were you talking about with Kickbacks that’s not a joke you were talking about Kickbacks and and this is something that’s very serious as I said millions of people died and millions of people were forced to take a vaccine they should have never had to take against their will thank you Mr chairman now recognize Dr Joyce from Pennsylvania for five minutes a question thank you chairman W for convening this important hearing over the past months this subcommittee has heard testimony from Dr dasik of Eco health and and NIH deputy director Dr tavic during that questioning of both of these Witnesses has been become clear to me that the nih’s current Grant processes are inadequate to ensure the proper oversight of federal funds Dr dasik revealed that Eco Health’s renegotiated Grant would rely on continued work from the Wuhan Institute of virology and Dr habic confirmed that NIH was unaware of this continued collaboration when certifying Eco heal compliance this means that based on false statements NIH and niad approved Federal funding to go toward work involving the debar Wuhan Institute of virology Dr morrens do you agree that the NIH must have a rigorous Grant review process in order to ensure the grants that they provide are re responsible use of the federal taxpayers dollars yes do you agree that the strict review processes are especially important when evaluating a grantee who is out of compliance and determining if they are still receiving funding yes but I mean thank you yes is the answer on September 7th 2021 you wrote to Dr dassk in an email titled for Urgent review questions raised by Eco Health Alliance Grant proposal you wrote do not worry behind the scenes NIH is sticking up for Eco Health that’s a quote and proceeded to forward internal NIH Communications to do to Dr dasic what did you mean by saying that the NIH was sticking up for Eco Health behind the scenes you know I don’t remember specifically but I felt sounds nefarious doesn’t it it sounds what it sounds like it’s suspicious it sounds nefarious it does yeah it’s concerning isn’t it yeah you know I don’t were you regularly colluding with Dr desic in order to promote Ecco Health in the NIH did I collude with him yeah that’s my question is using an unofficial email address to provide grantees with non-public information about Grant consideration consistent with NIH standards review process you know I think what I was referring to is stuff that was in the public domain there was a newspaper store why would you use a private email to do that because you know at one point I stopped communicating with Peter and the others on anything but Gmail why would you do that well I’ve already explained that because things that things that they tell me that are private things could get you know get into the public domain if they send it to my well you said it was in the public domain it it’s personally editing grantee responses to NIH compliance efforts as you did with letters Eco Health sent to NIH consistent with NIH and niad standard compliance process uh it’s probably not I I’d have to go look at it and under you know I don’t remember anything it certainly is not do you believe that using your personal email in this way was consistent with NI and niad policy and are you aware of other NIH or niad employees who also conducted official work on unofficial emails you know I don’t know of anybody specifically but you know we get uh training on emails all the time and in that training we are told that it’s a policy to try to separate them so did you follow that policy I I try to yes and I’ve we have evidence that you did not follow that policy trying to is not success the government standards of the NIH should mean following policy do you agree that you failed to follow NIH policy I do age but you know I find this to be quite concerning as we look to how we move forward recognizing that NIH standards and NIH policies were failed I think that your testimony here today continues to affirm to us that NIH policies has dismally failed when it came to covid-19 Mr chairman I thank you for the opportunity to have this hearing today and I yield the balance of my time thank you Dr morrens it’s not the intention of this committee to throw the baby out with the bath water and I agree with Dr Ruiz and many public servants work diligently and honestly every day and I applaud those public servants we applaud their work but it’s clear between your transcribed interview the actions that we have seen through your emails and your testimony today that we have more investigating to do and in closing I I just want want to say thank you for appearing before us today and with that and without objection all members will have five legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response if there’s no further Business Without objection the select subcommittee stands adjourned the select subcommittee on the Corona virus pandemic will come to order I want to welcome everyone at the discretion of the chair and pursuant to agreement with the committee on Energy and Commerce the chairman and ranking member of the committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations Mr Morgan Griffith and Miss Kathy Caster are permitted to participate in today’s hearings for the purposes of questions and give three minute opening statements if they so desire without objection the chair May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement good afternoon everyone Dr Morris you wrote in an email that you have never said anything that you would not be happy to defend before a congressional committee today serves that day the select subcommittee has been thoroughly investigating the US government’s response to the Corona virus pandemic this yearslong investigation has been conducted to both understand the actions of our Public Health agencies institutions and officials and the actions taken so that we can learn from from deficiencies and ingrain proficiencies we are learning from experiences and developing better Pathways for processes responses and new ways forward so that the next time there’s a public health emergency such as a pandemic our response will meet the high standards the American people expect deserve and pay for this is not McCarthyism this is not stalinesque this is not a Witch Hunt as you as you Dr morrens and Dr dashak have so eloquently labeled it before this is seeking truth justice and the American way while conducting this investigation the select subcommittee uncovered extremely concerning Behavior by Dr Anthony Fouch senior scientific adviser and the witness before us today Dr David morens accordingly on April 16th 2024 this select subcommittee announced the subpoena for Dr morrens for documents related to the covid-19 pandemic specifically those found on his personal email accounts which he had been using to communicate with other NIH officials and Eco Health president Dr Peter dasak government officials hiding from We the People is not the American way the select subcommittee proceeded to conduct an extensive review of the the communications and documents produced under subpoena by Dr morrens the information contained in the these 30,000 pages of emails are deeply concerning and in my opinion reflects poorly upon Dr morrens and the office of the National Institute of allergy and infectious disease under Dr F’s leadership and the NIH under Dr Francis Collins Unfortunately today we released a staff memo outlining the evidence gathered we have evidence that Dr morren purposefully evaded public transparency required by the Freedom of Information Act by intentionally using a personal email account for official business we have evidence that Dr moren’s unlawfully deleted government records and may have engaged with the NIH foia Foya office Freedom of Information Act office to assist this illegal action we have evidence that Dr morren routinely acted as an intermediary between Dr dasek and Dr fouchy and we have evidence that Dr morren took affirmative steps to assist Dr daac so that Eco Health could have its Grant reinstated after it was spend suspended under the Trump Administration and approved by NIH leadership Dr morens it’s unfortunately looks like you were not truthful in your interview with us during that interview you may not have been under oath however you were reminded by select subcommittee councel that your answers were subject to criminal prosecution pursuant to Title 18 section 10001 of the United States code in other words lying in that interview before us would be a crime when asked if you understood that requirement you said you did today we may be able ble to find out where the truth lies is it in your testimony or is it in your emails we recently had the president of Eco Health Alliance Dr Peter dashak before the select subcommittee for a hearing and we produced an extensive report outlining the wrongdoing and bad faith actions taken by Eco health and its president just two weeks after these investigative measures took place NIH recommended that Eco Health be immediately debarred from receiving Federal Dr morren provided nonpublic government information to Dr dashek including internal deliberations and Communications about Eco Health occurring at the highest levels of NIH this is not just a oneway street we also found that Dr morren disseminated information from Ecco Health on behalf of Eco Health to top NIH officials fact we even uncovered an email from Dr morrens to Dr dasak asking if he would get a kickback after the Eco Health Grant was reinstated after the funding to Eco Health was paused in 2020 Dr morn advocated for them to have their Federal funding reinstated assisted Eco Health in receiving that funding provided Ecco Health with non-public information in order to help get that funding reinstated and then requested a kickback you know joking about the kickback or not the entire process is wholly unacceptable and I wish that was the full extent of it but it’s not frankly some of the documents we received from Dr morens were difficult to read I can’t imagine saying some of the things let alone putting them in writing the select subcommittee uncovered Communications in which Dr morens acted inappropriately and entirely unsuitable for a member of the Public Health Service who receives a taxpayer funded paycheck these are just some of the unfortunate and unprofessional findings the select subcommittee has made during our investigation it’s very disturbing to witness this type of behavior from Dr fal’s senior adviser but the evidence is clear and overwhelming Dr fal’s ni Aid was unfortunately less pristine than so many including the media would have had us all believe you Dr morren you reported directly to Dr fouchy you served as a senior advisor for more than two decades did your boss know about this Behavior did he condone it did he try to stop it did he participate in it that we don’t know but given the breath of this investigation we continue our work to ensure that we thoroughly review each document produced no stone will be left unturned put simply Dr mors you have a lot to answer for the American people that we represent deserve honor answers we all do today I hope we can further our quest for information into the government’s response to covid-19 and provide the American people with honest answers about the actions taken by Personnel at the National Institutes of Health during this time especially at the leadership levels Dr morren you will be sworn in today and your answers will be under oath and I strongly suggest you tell the truth which I sure I don’t need to advise you on that I will remind you that you are testif fing today under a subpoena the terms of the subpoena require you to stay until the chair excuses you I look forward to a robust and on-topic discussion today thank you and I’d now like to recognize ranking member Ruiz for the purpose of making an opening statement thank you Mr chairman for decades our federal public health and scientific institutions have diligently upheld a legacy of respect and decorum in their work to advance the public interest and Within These institutions thousands upon thousands of federal employees have reported to work every day with the goal of promoting our scientific Enterprise and ensuring that every American can lead the healthiest life possible as an Emergency Physician and public health expert I hold the legacy of scientific advancement to safeguard human health in the highest regard and through my tenure in Congress including as a member of the Energy and Commerce committee’s health subcommittee I have championed legislation to invest in our federal scientific and public health Workforce so that they can carry forward this crucial work but there are times when individuals stray from this Legacy and conduct themselves in a manner that is Unbecoming of the thousands and thousands who strive to uphold the respect and decency that has come to be known of our federal scientific and public health Workforce and leaders and today we will be hearing from one of the these individuals Dr morren for nearly a year the select subcommittee has been reviewing your conduct and what we have found is deeply troubling to me in internal documents you produce to the select subcommittee you on multiple occasions alluded to the deletion of official emails an act that likely constitute the destruction of federal records and frequently you blurred the line between your official duties and your personal viewpoints including by communicating about official business on your personal email address with individuals who have pending interests before your agency and by representing yourself as a federal official in the signature of your personal email correspondence and while it is not a violation of the law to do so you disparaged other members of the scientific Community with language that is Unbecoming of a representative of the federal government what troubles me most about your conduct Dr morren is the extent to which it is so willingly betrays Decades of dedication diligence and decorum from the thousands of federal scientists and public health workers who came before you who have served alongside you and who will serve on in to the Future and that is why appropriate accountability for your actions is appropriate it is not anti-science to hold you accountable for defying The public’s trust and misusing official resources to the contrary taking your misconduct seriously is about ensuring that Americans myself included can continue to expect the highest degree of professionalism from our Premier scientific institutions as we have since their Inception now with all that in mind I want to take a moment to make sure the record is clear on one thing at the outset of this hearing while accountability for instances of misconduct is essential to ensuring The public’s continued trust in our federal institutions and their use of taxpayer dollars Dr moren’s testimony today is not a breakthrough moment in actually understanding the actual origins of the covid-19 pandemic because the fact of the matter is that as of today the origins of the novel Corona virus remain inconclusive and if the select subcommittee wants to actually shed a light on the answers to this question then we need to take an objective look at all the various Pathways by which SARS K2 could have emerged be they in a lab or in nature now before we hear from the witness let me just conclude by saying it is my hope Dr morrens that today you will offer some humility and remorse for your actions which are a stain on the legacy of your colleagues at niad and throughout the federal government at the same time it is my hope that the members of this select subcommittee while appropriately critical of your actions will treat you with the same decency and respect that we expect that we expected of you as a federal employee and Steward of the public trust so let us model the same behavior here today that we have come to expect of our federal Workforce thank you and I yield back thank you our witness today is Dr David morren senior Scientific Advisor to the director at the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases pursuant to committee on oversight and accountability rule 9g the witness will please stand and raise his right hand do you solemly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God thank you let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative the select subcommittee certainly appreciates you for being here today Dr morren and we do look forward to your testimony uh Dr moren’s pursuant to house rules and committee practice Witnesses appearing before the select subcommittee are given the opportunity to make initial presentations summarizing their testimony after opening statements by the chair and ranking member which we have just done Dr morren it is our understanding through your Council that you have declined to provide an opening statement is that correct okay let the record reflect that the witness has declined the opportunity to provide an opening statement we will therefore proceed directly with member questions so I now recognize myself for questions on on January 18 Dr morren you sat for a transcribed interview with us while not sworn in you were advised by councel that title 18 section 10001 applied to that testimony and if you made false statements you could be subject to criminal prosecution do you recall that your microphone’s not on I don’t think yeah do I keep it on or only when I talk whenever you’re talking yes okay sorry I I remember you telling me I think what you’re referring to is telling me that um even though I wasn’t under oath I was bound to tell the truth is that what you said yes and that you could be subject to criminal prosecution yes you told me that okay today you are under oath and we will be comparing your statements today that to those you gave previously the majority of my questions today will be simple yes or no questions on April 21 2021 you wrote I can either send stuff to Tony foui on his private email or hand it to him at work or at his house did you ever send information related to covid-19 to Dr fal’s personal email I don’t remember if I did I may have but I certainly told him some things that he asked me to tell him about the situation with Peter thank you on May 13th 2021 you wrote that you connected a reporter to Dr faly Via your secret back Channel what back channel did you have for Dr fouchy well all these terms like secret back Channel and um the other one you mentioned were just jokes just you know uh jokes that I made in in dealing with Peter because he was under death threats and was very depressed and it was sort of the the group of people who were Peter’s friends were trying to cheer them up by making snarky jokes and euphemisms that were um you know not true but there was no back channel the back channel was um uh you know the fact the the back channel to Tony was the same one that it applies to everybody and may I say which is which is what well I’m going to tell you um okay there there’s a um Tony does not want me to connect anybody to him directly and um with one exception a couple of weeks ago um I never did but the back channel was a regular channel within government where if somebody wanted to talk to Tony I would tell them um we have a regular process here it’s called odam office of director am group the the the Inner Circle and the request to do something it would be to talk to Tony or to give a talk or whatever would go to this group and they would meet in person with Tony every morning and say um you know we got a message that so and so wants to talk to you or so and so wants to um wants something from you and then he would decide usually right there um I was never involved in that um uh at least not in recent years I used to go to those meetings many years ago but um so is that the channel you’re referring to yes that’s the channel it’s not really a back Channel but I’m being you know making snarky comments it’s a it’s a wellestablished still functioning Channel I guess it’s still function but certainly before I was put on administrative leave that channel was um still operating and it’s the way things were done so there was a connection you said just in this statement now you said there was a connection a couple weeks ago that you did not do what was that I think I don’t remember the details but I think it was somebody maybe maybe Jerry kersch who’s a former NIH Institute director wanted to talk to Tony and I think I said something like because he used to be a director he knows Tony personally and I think I said something like um you can just talk to him directly you don’t have to go through me in in addition to your Gmail do you also have a proton mail account um I do yes on January 18 you testified that you did not conduct official business via personal email Dr Mor did you ever conduct official business via your personal email well I I I didn’t do anything that I thought was official business I I understand now that there is some discrepancy between what I thought and what y’all may think about what’s official business but may I back up and tell you about this whole Gmail thing since Gmail versus NIH email and um uh record destruction and foas seem to be um the most important thing you’re interested in and rightly so um I’ve had a Gmail account for many years and I don’t know how long I’ve had the proton account but it’s for a while uh which I almost never i al never Ed the proton account but I did use the Gmail account and um at some and also I should say that going back to at least 2010 if not or I I’m sorry going back to at least 2013 and possibly to 2010 the IT people in my Institute put one icon on my government phone in which emails and Gils were fused that is to say I had a blue icon that said mail and if I got a mail every morning I would get up and do email you know open up my NIH emails and Gils Fus knowing they were fused but I didn’t think it was a problem because I could usually tell whether a mail I was looking at was uh Gmail or government mail and I also knew how to go into my um uh phone and do a few clicks and things and find out if I needed to find out or I could go to my Gmail on the computer where there wasn’t that Fusion so anyways I had I have there’s a long-standing problem with Fusion of Gmail and email for me Dr morens I I will tell you I I I can uh I can understand that I have non-official emails on a separate phone that are fused or I can separate them but not my official ones and that doesn’t account for telling people that you’re doing official business with that that they should contact you on your Gmail that’s true I just I was just to and especially to avoid Foya and to be able to potentially delete things you don’t want in New York Times which was your comment on January 18 you testified no when asked if you ever deleted anything from your official account that could be considered a federal record Dr morren are you aware that the destruction or attempted destruction of federal records carries a potential punishment of both imprisonment and a fine I was not aware of that and I was not aware that anything I deleted like emails was a federal record because we have Federal records training uh periodically and the training um you know that I recall we received um defined a federal record in a very different way than you may be thinking of it none none of it defined was defined as an email well that may be something to look into is what your training looks like when it comes to Federal records because it’s far different from mine on October 5 2021 you wrote Peter I just got news that a Foya picked up an email I sent you saying Tony commented that he was brain dead I deleted that email but I now learned that every email I ever got since 1998 is captured and will be turned over whether or not instantly deleted on June 28th 2021 you wrote Peter dashek emailed me and Tony congratulating Tony on standing up for science that email fell into the hands of the congressman probably via Foya of someone who didn’t delete it as I did as I did delete all of Peter’s emails and others related to origin mine was erased long ago I verified that today and I feel pretty sure Tony was to Dr morren did you ever delete or attempt to delete a federal record no but let me explain why it seems to be discrepant you can’t delete an email from NIH um you know from an ni computer system they’re all retained and can be accessed for any purpose including a Foya now I don’t know what they normally do whether when the Foya is um uh is required whether whether they how far back they go or whatever but it’s my understanding that U if they want to they can go back um all the way to the beginning maybe even to I came to NIH in 1998 and um at that time when we came to in uh there in 199 when I came there in 1998 we were instructed to delete emails um and or to move them into PST files frequently because they jamed the computer and so I got into the habit of um every morning um you know looking at all my emails and when I say email I mean NIH email um looking at my NIH emails and um some of them can be dis sensed with quickly and then just deleting them other ones that I would need to um keep or thought I might keep would be moved into a PST file so that my uh inbox wouldn’t crash and um and I must say dep based on my understanding of what
Diseases Senior Scientific Advisor, Dr. David Morens” by noting that Dr. David Morens — a former top advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — is appearing before the Select Subcommittee today after a subpoena for his testimony was announced. Evidence obtained by the Select Subcommittee shows Dr. Morens unlawfully deleted federal COVID-19 records, shared nonpublic information about National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant processes with his “best-friend” EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak, and likely lied to Congress multiple times. During his opening remarks, Chairman Wenstrup outlined the Select Subcommittee’s latest staff memo which exposes Dr. Morens’s misconduct and reveals overwhelming evidence gathered over a year-long investigation. Notably, Dr. Morens’s egregious behavior occurred in one of the most senior offices at NIH while serving as a senior advisor to Dr. Fauci. Chairman Wenstrup concluded his opening statement by emphasizing that the Select Subcommittee is working to ensure federal health officials never again feel empowered to subvert our elected government.
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