U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to begin producing 300 pages of potentially responsive records to the Daily Caller News Foundation beginning on November 30. This comes eight months after receiving the Daily Caller’s request under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The lawsuit was filed April 1, 2020, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judicial Watch on their behalf (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:20-cv-01149)).
Dr. Anthony Fauci
The judge ordered HHS to begin producing communications and other records of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci and Deputy Director H. Clifford Lane about the World Health Organization (WHO), China, and the coronavirus. HHS said they could produce about 300 pages each day with the total number of responsive records at approximately 4,200, this would string the complete record out until at least 2022. HHS put forward the argument that Fauci must personally review each one of his emails before they are released.
NIAID Deputy Director Dr. H. Clifford Lane.
The lawsuit sought to discover communications between Dr. Fauci, Deputy Director Lane, World Health Organization officials, WHO official Bruce Aylward, WHO Director General Tedros Anhanom, and China concerning the novel coronavirus between January 1, 2020 to April 1, 2020.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “NIH seems to be playing politics with the Fauci emails. The FOIA request at issue here concerns records that are likely to shed light on the China and WHO disinformation campaign on coronavirus—the stonewall seems calculated to undermine President Trump and protect WHO and China.”
“People have every right under the law to see the communications between our government agencies (including Dr. Fauci), China and the WHO at the outset of this pandemic that has killed so many Americans and destroyed our economy,” said Daily Caller News Foundation President Neil Patel. “We are happy that Judge Friedrich agreed with our position that the government should not be able to keep this information secret. However, the fact that the document production doesn’t have to start until over six months after our lawful request — and that the production will not finish until 2022, is a sad joke. It’s amazing people still wonder why the American people have lost trust in our national institutions.”
Michael Reed is Editor of The Standard.
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