Fauci 'I don't recall' rerun? HHS official stumped by COVID subcommittee oversight questions

The Department of Health and Human Services is like a child who steals a cookie and, when asked if he stole it, answers "I know there used to be a cookie there."

The chairman of the House's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic used that analogy to describe a top agency official's explanation at a hearing Wednesday for allegedly "stonewalling" document requests for nearly a year by the chamber's GOP majority. 

Assistant Secretary for Legislation Melanie Egorin showed up at the committee's hearing after HHS canceled her scheduled Sept. 28 transcribed interview the day before, claiming she had COVID-19, according to the Nov. 2 subpoena from Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio.

Egorin repeatedly claimed her staff "responded" or had been "responsive" to GOP demands to see its materials on COVID origins, the science behind vaccine policies and school reopening discussions.

But Wenstrup called her written testimony "somewhat insulting" by touting 30,000 pages that HHS has turned over this Congress, ignoring that HHS gave a single subcommittee in the previous Democrat-controlled Congress 43,000 pages.

The 10,000 pages turned over to Wenstrup's subcommittee – 1,000 of them Tuesday night – included "hundreds of pages" of public news articles as well as heavily redacted communications and simply irrelevant information, the chairman said. 

"Responses are not the same as answers," said Wenstrup, like many of the members a physician. "You could just as soon hand us a physiology book."

Even the names of foreign nationals are redacted under the guise of "national security," Wenstrup marveled. He showed Egorin a requested document that HHS has not provided despite the Oversight Committee making it public two years ago, which the chairman said suggests the agency is hiding more.

"HHS has blocked witnesses from discussing" the reinstatement of the EcoHealth Alliance's grant for arguable gain-of-function research and its current status, "COVID mitigation measures," and internal communications, Wenstrup said.

He showed Egorin her signature on a memo telling David Morens, the top science adviser to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, not to talk about Morens' work in his "official capacity" at his transcribed interview in January. That was prompted by Morens' documented intentional evasion of public records obligations. 

While Egorin said these memos are "advisory," telling employees what HHS and Congress have agreed to, Wenstrup said agency lawyers treat them as mandatory. It could be argued HHS is "intimidating witnesses and interfering with their testimony" in violation of federal law, he said.

"Is HHS funded by someone other than the American people’s tax dollars?" Wenstrup asked rhetorically, fumbling for an explanation on the Morens restrictions. "I hope not."

Egorin promised repeatedly Wednesday to get answers to GOP questions, recalling the 174 times Fauci answered "I don't recall" in his 2022 deposition in a lawsuit against federal pressure on social media to censor purported misinformation. But she said HHS had answered requests based on members' stated "priorities" in line with the agency's "limited resources."

Egorin hoisted herself on her own petard, however, by complaining about GOP requests to search the terms "lab" and "teleconference" across HHS's 90,000 employees, which she compared to "boiling the ocean." 

The GOP asked for information about 12 officials, Wenstrup corrected Egorin, and Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, asked whether "complete incompetence" explains HHS's inability to gather a "cadre" among 90,000 employees to answer their questions. Egorin said she oversees "about 27" staff.

Jackson lost his cool when Egorin said HHS answered GOP requests for written documentation of the science behind Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen's booster statements by giving a staff briefing instead. He floated the possibility of cutting HHS funds and restricting her own travel funds and salary.

Wenstrup asked for any written or verbal discussions officials had about refusing to comply with oversight, providing only "previously public documents" or delaying to "run out the clock" until Democrats resume control. HHS has turned over just 274 pages in response to the subcommittee's March 10 letter about approval of Pfizer's COVID vaccine, the chairman said.

HHS has discussed how to respond in an "effective manner" and on average produced documents every 10 days, Egorin said. She frustrated Wenstrup by not saying yes or no to whether HHS would turn over "every" responsive document it has.

"We override your investigation," the chairman said when Egorin declined to talk about Morens, who was placed on administrative leave, until its own investigation concludes. She promised, again, to confirm that agency policy actually prohibits congressional compliance during internal probes.

"How come you don't know anything?" Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., asked when Egorin couldn't answer whether and when HHS had done "custodial interviews" in response to Wenstrup's Aug. 23 request for records relating to the illegal biolab in California tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

"I find it very hard to believe that somebody that is in charge of this – that knows that they're coming in front of a committee that has for a year requested information – knows nothing and will just get back to us, even though you probably won't get back to us because you haven't for a year," Lesko fumed.

Democratic members often came to Egorin's rescue, with Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume telling her to "take today's questioning with a grain of salt." He noted her time as Democratic health policy director on the House Ways and Means Committee, which Egorin's LinkedIn page lists as her current job despite leaving it more than two years ago.

"It is not and it should not be the role of this committee to berate witnesses," Mfume said, reminding his colleagues none of them had read all 10,000 pages. Wenstrup shot back that the subcommittee's staff director has read all except for possibly Tuesday night's 1,000-page drop.

California Rep. Raul Ruiz, the committee's top Democrat, called the hearing "political theater" intended as a "distraction" from the GOP's lack of accomplishments in power.

He emphasized current and former officials have done more than 80 hours of transcribed interviews, with Fauci alone the subject of two dozen document productions. Members and staff can review redactions privately, Ruiz said: "This doesn't exactly sound like stonewalling to me."

Not only has the GOP "repeatedly moved the goalposts" by blaming HHS for following its own priority schedule, said Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., but it has complaining about redactions that protect government officials from growing threats against their safety.

"It's a gift to our adversaries" that Republicans keep politicizing the intelligence community, "tearing apart the national security institutions that keep our very country safe and free," said Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Calif.

Atypically for these hearings, Democrats didn't mention the most recent Republican president and 2024 frontrunner for more than an hour. California Rep. Robert Garcia called the GOP investigations "pointless" and "shameful" and credited their policies to "supreme leader Donald Trump."