Report: Biden COVID Advisor Put His FOIA Dodge in Text Sent to Anthony Fauci

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By Ben Smith

A single sentence pulled from Anthony Fauci's government cellphone may be the most damning line yet to emerge from the Biden administration's COVID inner circle: "I'm sending this via text messaging to avoid any FOIA issues."

Journalist Catherine Herridge identified the sender as Michael Osterholm, a member of Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board. He sent the message to "Jeff, Vivek, Tony and Rochelle," the Biden administration's entire COVID inner circle, to discuss face masks, aerosol transmission and the administration's public guidance.

Herridge posted the screenshot Wednesday. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) obtained the texts from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through his investigation into COVID-19 origins as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

"I'm sending this via text messaging to avoid any FOIA issues. On Friday a Newsmax reporter asked Jen Psaki about my comments on face cloth coverings and protection against SARS-CoV-2 transmission."

Osterholm didn't bury the admission. He stated outright that dodging FOIA was the reason for the text; then sent it directly to the people running federal pandemic policy.

But the FOIA dodge wasn't the only bombshell in the message. Osterholm told the Biden COVID brain trust something the administration was not telling the public: that cloth masks offer little protection:

“Since April, 2020, I have been consistent in my messaging about the roles that aerosols play in transmission, and the limited benefit that cloth face coverings play in reducing risk. N-95s are necessary to be effective reducing risk with aerosol transmission.”

Osterholm said U.S. manufacturers had enough N95s for health workers, first responders, industrial users and the public. HHS later produced the message from Fauci's government phone.

Under National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) guidance, agency business messages are federal records, regardless of whether they're sent through personal accounts or third-party apps, and must be preserved accordingly. NARA cites 18 U.S.C. Sections 641 and 2071 among the potential penalties for unlawfully removing or destroying them.

The screenshot alone doesn't prove a crime. But Osterholm wrote in plain English that he chose text to "avoid any FOIA issues," and sent it to the people running the federal pandemic response. Herridge's question cuts to the chase: "How widespread, and how many separate channels were used to avoid FOIA?"

This message is one thread in a much larger web. Investigators have recovered more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails from Fauci's government phone alone, and congressional review has only just begun.

Context makes Osterholm's admission impossible to ignore. The day before Herridge posted the screenshot, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) senior advisor David Morens pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a federal scheme to evade FOIA and the Federal Records Act (FRA). Prosecutors said Morens and others deliberately used his personal Gmail account to keep government communications out of public view.

Investigators have one phone's contents. Now they need the rest of the threads.

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