Judicial Watch Sues National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for Communications Between FOIA Officer and Top Officials

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for all email communications between National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) FOIA Officer Margaret Moore and top NIAID officials, including former Director Dr. Anthony Fauci (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:26-cv-01491)).

Moore is the “FOIA Lady” who allegedly taught David Morens, pandemic-era NIAID senior advisor to Fauci, “how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d” to cloak top NIAID officials’ communications from ever seeing the light of day.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to respond to a June 4, 2024, FOIA request for all email communications between Moore (the “FOIA Lady”) and any of the following officials:

NIAID Director Anthony Fauci

NIAID Senior Advisor David Morens

NIH Bioethics Official Christine Grady

NIAID Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchincloss, M.D.

NIAID Deputy Director H. Richard Lane

EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak

In June 2023, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, announced its investigation of “a potential violation of federal record keeping laws” at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) by Morens. The subcommittee chair wrote: “In one e-mail you write that you ‘always try to communicate over gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly.’ You continue, ‘[d]on’t worry, just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.’”

As part of the expanding investigation into NIH records practices, congressional investigators began examining the role of FOIA processing officials in handling or advising on records requests involving senior agency personnel.

Moore came to congressional attention in 2024 during the subcommittee’s investigation into NIH communications practices and alleged efforts to avoid federal records disclosure requirements. In September 2024, the subcommittee sent a letter and subpoena to Moore regarding Morens’ communications. Her attorney informed Congress that she intended to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Morens was indicted for allegedly helping to conceal and destroy federal records, evading FOIA requests, and using personal email to hide Covid-related communications during the pandemic. The indictment references a March 2021 Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that uncovered many NIH communications, contracts and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

“Key decisions were made behind closed doors at Dr. Fauci’s agency during the pandemic,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people have a right to know what was hidden from them.”

Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuits and investigations have uncovered much of what the public knows about many Covid-19 controversies:

In April 2026, Judicial Watch sued the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records and communications of its employees with other government officials regarding coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and related Covid-19 research.

 In March 2026, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Defense (War Department) for records on funding proposals submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Biological Technologies Office was launched in 2014.

In June 2025, Judicial Watch sued the Defense Department for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit cited a December 2022 report issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited Covid-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.

In May 2025, Judicial Watch received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that revealed its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.

Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”

Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it. 

Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”

Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19. 

Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.

Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.

National Institutes of Health records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China. 

Health and Human Services records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the National Institutes of Health’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.

Health and Human Services records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international councils as high level commitment from China.”

Health and Human Services records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.

Health and Human Services records showed the State Department and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding Covid-19 data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.

University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.

Health and Human Services records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.

Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.

Health and Human Services records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.

Health and Human Services records showed that National Institutes of Health officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.

Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

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