BREAKING: “FOIA Lady” Plans to Plead the Fifth After Wenstrup Announces Subpoena for Her Testimony

Ms. Margaret Moore, a lead staffer in NIH’s FOIA office, allegedly taught NIAID officials how to “make emails disappear”

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

Earlier this year, the Select Subcommittee released evidence that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senior Advisor at NIAID — Dr. David Morens — deleted federal COVID-19 records and used his personal email account to evade FOIA. Dr. Morens wrote from his personal email account on two separate occasions that, “I learned the tricks last year from an old friend, Marg Moore, who heads our FOIA office and also hates FOIAs” and “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear.” This email correspondence appears to implicate Ms. Moore in Dr. Morens’ unlawful actions 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 secure voluntary testimony from Ms. Moore, she has repeatedly resisted these efforts and delayed the Select Subcommittee’s investigation. Today’s subpoena is necessary to uncover the truth about the NIH’s record retention policies and hold Ms. Moore accountable for any role she played in advising NIH employees on how to thwart federal laws.

“Instead of using NIH’s FOIA office to provide the transparency and accountability that the American people deserve, it appears that ‘FOIA Lady’ Margaret Moore assisted efforts to evade federal record keeping laws. 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. 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. The Select Subcommittee is working tirelessly to ensure that federal health officials are never again unaccountable to the American people nor 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 subpoena here.

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