A relatively unknown public records officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now at the centre of a burgeoning scandal involving Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The saga unfolded after subpoenaed emails belonging to David Morens, a former top advisor to Anthony Fauci, revealed that someone had taught him to game the system and avoid emails being captured by FOIA requests.
“i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Morens wrote in a Feb 24, 2021, email. “Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”
Morens implicated Margaret (Marg) Moore, known colloquially as “The FOIA lady” in trying to hide information from the American people, particularly that related to the origins of Covid-19, which is a felony.
It sparked an investigation by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to expose what Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) called a “cover-up.”
A letter to NIH director Monica Bertagnolli in May suggested “a conspiracy at the highest levels” of these once trusted public health institutions.
“If what appears in these documents is true, this is an apparent attack on public trust and must be met with swift enforcement and consequences for those involved,” Wenstrup wrote.
Wenstrup said there was evidence that a former chief of staff of Fauci’s might have used intentional misspellings — such as “Ec~Health” instead of “EcoHealth” — to prevent emails from being captured in keyword searches by FOIA officials.
Today, Wenstrup announced a subpoena to compel Moore (The FOIA lady) to appear for a deposition on October 4, 2024, saying that she’d repeatedly resisted these efforts and delayed the Select Subcommittee’s investigation.
“Her alleged scheme to help NIH officials delete COVID-19 records and use their personal emails to avoid FOIA is appalling and deserves a thorough investigation,” said Wenstrup.
“Holding Ms. Moore accountable for any role she played in undermining American trust is a step towards improving the lack of accountability and absence of transparency rapidly spreading across many agencies within our federal government,” he added.
Moore, however, has indicated through her lawyers that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Her lawyers wrote to Wenstrup explaining that she’d cooperated with the Select Subcommittee to find “an alternative” to sitting for an interview, including expediting her own FOIA request for her own documents.
They also explained that Morens’ emails suggesting Moore gave tips “about avoiding FOIA,” were misleading because Morens, under oath said, “That was a joke…She didn’t give me advice about how to avoid FOIA.”
Nonetheless, Moore’s decision to plead the Fifth has only fuelled concern over the lack of transparency and accountability of one of the nation’s top health research institutions.
It’s not over until the FOIA lady sings!
Further reading: The great FOIA dodge
Republished from the author’s Substack
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