Political

AUSTIN, Texas -- In early 2020, ICAN made FOIA requests to NIH for documents regarding COVID-19, including two requests for emails sent by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. When NIH failed to respond to those requests, ICAN brought a lawsuit against the agency on June 29, 2020.

In response to that lawsuit, NIH agreed to produce Dr. Fauci's emails on a rolling basis. To date, ICAN has received 2,957 pages of Dr. Fauci's emails, sent from early February 2020 through May 2020. There is some overlap between these emails and those recently made public by BuzzFeed.

Del Bigtree, ICAN's founder, said, "We must hold our government health officials accountable when they make false claims" and "we're pleased to provide the public with Fauci's emails reflecting what he was saying privately in early 2020 regarding masks, therapeutics, vaccines, ventilators, and many other COVID-19 topics."

Twitter suspended ICAN's account after it tweeted the Fauci emails it obtained would shortly be released to the public. Mr. Bigtree explained that "one can only assume that Twitter is concerned that Fauci's own emails undermine the narrative it has been pushing regarding coronavirus and the coronavirus vaccine."

A copy of Fauci's emails obtained by ICAN can be downloaded here. Highlights from these emails are outlined below and watch "The Highwire with DelBigtree" weekly at 2 pm Eastern for additional coverage regarding these emails and other health topics.

• February 5-6, 2020 (000239) -- Fauci asked to recommend names for WHO group with the broad mission to "look at the origins and evolution of 2019n-CoV." Fauci responds by seeking to reframe the mission in a manner that would only look for natural and not lab made origin. He does this by restating the mission one to "examine the evolutionary origin of the 2019-nCoV" and later that day as the "coronavirus evolution working group."

• February 7, 2020 (000189) -- Fauci sent an internal NIAID communication reflecting that it was unlikely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a wet market.

• February 16, 2020 (000447) -- Fauci tells CBS reporter that if the mortality turns out to be 0.2% to 0.4%, then SARS-CoV-2 should be treated like a severe seasonal flu. But when the case fatality rate was later revised to between 0.2% and 0.4% by CDC, Fauci continued to act as if the virus was something far more dangerous.

• February 17, 2020 (000422) -- Fauci receives communication from a Chinese citizen that is part of an international student program in the United States stating that, based on his contacts back in Wuhan, including correspondence from a nurse working in a Wuhan hospital, there is far more spread of the virus and far more deaths than China is admitting.

• February 21, 2020 (000300) -- Fauci asks a Deputy Director at NIAID to "Please handle" an email received by a group of doctors and scientists, including a virologist, that opined that "we think there is a possibility that the virus was released from a lab in wuhan (sic)."

• February 23, 2020 (000257) -- Fauci states "Transmission is definitely by respiratory droplet" and that "Children have very low rate of infection."

• February 22, 2020 (000274-277) -- Fauci confirms "The vast majority of people outside of China do not need to wear a mask. A mask is more appropriate for someone who is infected than for people trying to protect against infection."

• February 28, 2020 (001059) -- Fauci giving personal update to Mark Zuckerberg regarding developing a COVID-19 vaccine including telling Zuckerberg that "We may need help with resources" and that if there is a delay in the development timeline he just told Zuckerberg about, "I will contact you."

• March 1, 2020 (000937) -- Despite media reports, Fauci makes it crystal clear he was not being muzzled by the White House.

• April 2, 2020 (001778) -- Fauci and Bill Gates have phone call where they agreed to a "collaborative" and "synergistic approach to COVID-19 on the part of NIAID/NIH, BARDS and the BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)." It is concerning that one private person, Bill Gates, and his organization, BMGF, can exert that much behind-the-scenes influence on decisions that will impact the civil rights of all Americans during the pandemic.

• April 8, 2020 (002351-2352) -- Fauci rejects most requests for calls, but accepts without any questions a request to arrange a call with the CEO of a Lilly, a major pharmaceutical company.

• April 11, 2020 (002263-2264) -- Fauci confirmed the continued filming of "a film that will celebrate the importance of your [Fauci's] life, science and public health" including filming during his "drive to NIH … once or twice a week," "capture your working/appropriate conversations," and "work on the Task Force."

• April 12, 2020 (002229) -- Fauci writes "Many tests that have been used thus far are not accurate and ARE MISLEADING."

• April 16, 2020 (002142) -- Fauci advises that even in the health care setting the mask policy should remain "voluntary."

• April 27, 2020 (002910) -- Fauci appears to dismiss potential live saving treatment. Fauci receives a report from the Chief, Section of Viral Pathogenesis at NIAID, Dr. Paolo Lussa, that "they treated a first group of five patients with potent anti-aggregant therapy (Tirofiban/Aggrastat) and apparently in all of them the p02 started to rise within less than 2 hours, they got off the ventilator and went on to full recovery." In response to this incredible news, Fauci merely writes "Thanks, Paolo." Apart from pushing Remdesivir, made by Gilead, a company with which Fauci has deep and long-standing connections, Fauci's response to Dr. Lussa accords with his otherwise singular focus on developing and pushing a vaccine.

• May 1, 2020 (002838) -- While pushing one narrative regarding ventilators publicly, Fauci writes in a private email that "You are correct in that there is a more recent tendency to use ventilators only as a very last resort since oxygenation rather than ventilation appears to be key to recovery."