A Senate committee is holding a hearing to explore different theories about the origins of COVID-19. Senator Roger Marshall is urging a thorough audit of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) handling of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests over the past ten years. This call follows allegations presented to a House subcommittee that health officials attempted to obscure or delete documents related to the pandemic.
In a letter dated June 18 to Christi Grimm, the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Marshall (R-Kan.) emphasized the need for a comprehensive review of NIH’s FOIA responses. He also requested that any federal employees found to have violated transparency laws be referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution. This letter was exclusively shared with The Epoch Times.
The NIH encompasses the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), formerly led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who played a prominent role as a health advisor during the COVID-19 crisis and retired as the highest-paid federal employee in 2023.
Recent disturbing actions by officials at NIH and NIAID prompted Mr. Marshall to insist on an audit of all FOIA activities at these agencies to ensure legal compliance. He further stated that any evidence of criminal conduct should be forwarded to the DOJ for investigation.
FOIA mandates that government documents be accessible to the public upon request, with certain exemptions for national security, ongoing investigations, commercial trade secrets, and individual privacy. Dr. David Martens, previously Dr. Fauci’s senior adviser, testified to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that he collaborated with NIH’s FOIA office to hide emails, messages, and documents about federal funding for COVID-19 research and the origins of the virus. According to a May 28 statement from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Dr. Morens learned tactics for deleting official records from the FOIA office.
Senator Marshall’s call for an investigation into the NIH’s FOIA practices coincides with a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) hearing that will delve into the origins of COVID-19. Since January 2020, over 1.2 million Americans and an estimated 6 million people worldwide have died due to the virus.
The HSGAC hearing will discuss two primary theories about the virus’s origins: one suggesting it originated from bats and jumped to humans through another species, and another proposing that the virus was engineered through gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Supporters of the latter theory, including Mr. Marshall, point to the Chinese military’s involvement with WIV in biochemical research.
In his letter, Mr. Marshall highlighted the ongoing uncertainty about the virus’s origins, attributing it to the Chinese government’s refusal to grant full access to the WIV to U.S. and international investigators. He also mentioned that the Chinese Communist Party has obstructed efforts to investigate the pandemic’s origins since November 2019, when several WIV researchers fell ill with symptoms akin to COVID-19. Additionally, he noted WIV’s collaboration with the Chinese military on classified research involving laboratory animal experiments and its studies on viruses closely related to COVID-19, such as ‘RaTG13,’ which shares 96 percent genetic similarity with COVID-19.
