America First Legal (AFL) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), seeking official emails sent or received by Dr. Anthony Fauci through a private Gmail account. This action follows new evidence presented by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, indicating that Dr. David Morens, Fauci’s top advisor, may have attempted to circumvent FOIA regulations.
In an email disclosed by the subcommittee, Dr. Morens wrote: “I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony [Fauci] on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.” The subcommittee's findings suggest that Dr. Fauci was aware of this behavior and might have engaged in federal records violations himself.
Despite using a personal account for government business, official emails are still subject to FOIA requests. AFL is committed to uncovering these records.
Last year, AFL filed a similar FOIA request for Dr. Morens’s emails after discovering he had been using his personal email for NIH business. When NIH did not comply with that request, AFL initiated legal action earlier this month.
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel, emphasized the importance of transparency: “Every American citizen who lived through the COVID years understands what’s at stake. Time and again, we were repeatedly told one thing, only to have it later revealed as completely inaccurate... Given these credible allegations, we must ask ourselves, what did he have to hide? America First Legal has exposed practices throughout the Biden Administration of destroying federal records that would otherwise reveal politicized, potentially illegal activities by bureaucrats behaving badly–and we will do so here,” said Hamilton.