Ms. Margaret Moore, a senior staff member at the NIH Office of FOIA, is said to have taught NIAID officials how to “make emails disappear”

WASHINGTON – Today, Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio, Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic) announced a subpoena to compel Ms. Margaret Moore – infamously known as the “FOIA Lady” of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – to appear for deposition October 4, 2024. Documents suggest that Ms. Moore was involved in a conspiracy to teach officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) how to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and public transparency with related to COVID-19. pandemic. Ms. Moore’s counsel informed the Select Subcommittee that his client plans to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during Friday’s deposition.

Earlier this year, the Select Subcommittee released evidence that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s senior advisor at NIAID – Dr. David Morens – deleted federal COVID-19 data and used his personal email account to evade FOIA. Dr. Morens wrote twice from his personal email account: “I learned the tricks last year from an old friend, Marg Moore, who heads our FOIA office and also hates FOIAs“And”I learned how to make emails disappear from our foia lady here.This email correspondence appears to implicate Ms. Moore in Dr.’s unlawful actions. Morens and raises serious questions about her involvement in a potentially larger conspiracy to hide information from the American people.

Although the Select Subcommittee has worked in good faith to obtain voluntary testimony from Ms. Moore, it has repeatedly resisted these efforts and delayed the Select Subcommittee’s investigation. Today’s subpoena is necessary to uncover the truth about NIH’s data retention policies and hold Ms. Moore accountable for any role she played in advising NIH employees on how to comply with federal laws can thwart.

“Instead of using the NIH FOIA office to provide the transparency and accountability the American people deserve, it appears that “FOIA Lady” Margaret Moore has aided efforts to circumvent federal record-keeping laws. Her alleged scheme to help NIH officials delete COVID-19 data and use their personal emails to avoid FOIA is appalling and deserves a thorough investigation. Holding Ms. Moore accountable for any role she has played in undermining American trust is a step toward improving the lack of accountability and absence of transparency that is quickly spreading across many agencies within our federal government. The Select Subcommittee is working tirelessly to ensure that never again will federal health officials be unaccountable to the American people or feel empowered to willfully undermine our elected government.,” said Chairman Wenstrup.

Read the Select Subcommittee’s cover letter to NIH’s “FOIA Lady” Margaret Moore here and the subpoena here.

Read Ms. Moore’s counsel’s letter to the Select Subcommittee here.