Fauci’s FOIA mishaps reveal fake ‘transparency’ in Washington

Republican congressional investigators are revealing bold cover-ups of COVID by the National Institutes for Health and top aides to Anthony Fauci.

Bureaucrats have avoided complying with the Freedom of Information Act — a law designed to ensure government transparency — by concealing official records, sometimes by misspelling words on purpose to prevent exposure of incriminating emails and texts.

This situation is not the first time a pandemic-related FOIA issue has arisen.

In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration took only 108 days to fully approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine application, but claimed it would take 75 years to fulfill a FOIA request to release the same documentation.

In 2022, a federal judge criticized the agency and ordered a much quicker response. 

However, FOIA has been a joke for decades.

There’s a reason why skeptical investigators jokingly call it the “Freedom from Information Act.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration rejected a FOIA request from a man seeking information about people who had previously abducted him “because he lacked a signed waiver from the individuals who had held him hostage,” as reported by the Washington Examiner in 2015.

In 2017, a federal judge rebuked the FBI for claiming it needed 17 years to respond to a FOIA request regarding its surveillance of antiwar activists in the 1960s.

A year later, the FBI redacted the names of Clark Kent and Lois Lane from a document that mentioned the famous Superman characters—citing that disclosing them in a FOIA response would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

When asked for the titles of its reports, the Pentagon provided only a partial list to a journalist who promised never to file another FOIA request, according to a 2015 federal court ruling.

FOIA allows federal agencies to deny the truth.

In 2018, President Trump criticized US payments to “Syrian rebels fighting Assad.”

In 2020, a federal appeals court upheld the denial of a FOIA request for CIA records on those Syrian payoffs because the CIA had never officially acknowledged the program’s existence.

FOIA has never fully recovered from Barack Obama’s claim of running the “most transparent administration in history.”

During Obama’s tenure, Hillary Clinton exempted herself from FOIA obligations as secretary of state by using a private server for her official email communications. 

The State Department said it would need 75 years to respond to a FOIA request for her aides’ emails.

In 2011, the Obama administration suggested a rule that would allow federal agencies to falsely state that requested documents under FOIA did not exist.

The Obama White House hampered FOIA by instructing federal agencies to delay or deny any requests that had “White House equities”—meaning they could damage Obama’s reputation. 

A report by Politico in 2016 mentioned that referrals to the Obama White House “resulted in years of delay.”

Many journalists have stopped making FOIA requests altogether due to delays and redactions that rendered the request process useless for reporting, according to a 2016 congressional report titled “FOIA is Broken.” 

Having worked as an investigative journalist for over 40 years, I have faced numerous obstacles using FOIA. Federal agencies often assume that anyone who has openly criticized their programs forfeits their rights under FOIA. 

While I have encountered many roadblocks, some of my failures have provided moments of comic relief.

In the 1990s, I frequently wrote about the flaws in US trade policies.

When I submitted a FOIA to the Office of the US Trade Representative to access the information they had on me in their files, I received a response in 2010 stating, “We have no records on Kevin Bovard.”

I wasn’t talking about my cousin, guys.

In 2015, I heard rumors that the Justice Department pressured USA Today to stop publishing my articles critiquing Attorney General Eric Holder. 

After filing a FOIA to get the department’s official emails to my editors, the DOJ claimed they had no such records.

It wasn’t until I filed a follow-up FOIA request with the exact day, hour, and minute guessed correctly that I finally received a hit.

The recent NIH scandal serves as a reminder of the unspoken motto of federal FOIA officers: “Truth delayed is truth defused.” 

If you expect any politician to clean up this bureaucratic mess, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

James Bovard’s latest book is “Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty.”