Transmitted: January 19, 2022
To: Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services
Full Request: Department of Health and Human Services FOIA (PDF)
RE: FOIA Request for Security Detail Provided to Anthony Fauci
SUMMARY
Empower Oversight filed a FOIA request with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding information on the cost to taxpayers of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s security detail.
In April 2020, it was announced that HHS-OIG agents would be providing security detail for Dr. Anthony Fauci. Two months later, the OIG announced that its agents would be conducting an investigation into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its oversight into grants funding research conducted outside of the United States, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). With the controversy over whether the virus that caused a worldwide pandemic may have escaped from the WIV, the public interest has a right to know how much money is being diverted from HHS-OIG’s core mission to oversee HHS and NIH in order to provide a 24-hour security detail to Dr. Fauci.
To seek answers, Empower Oversight filed a FOIA request in November 2021 asking these very questions. On January 3, 2022, HHS-OIG informed Empower Oversight that 39 pages and two Excel spreadsheets were responsive to the FOIA request. HHS-OIG also advised that it had referred the 39 pages to NIH and requested that it interact with Empower Oversight concerning the release of those records.
However, Empower Oversight has received no acknowledgment from NIH and is currently in litigation with NIH over its failure to respond to FOIA requests on other matters.
The cost for HHS OIG in providing security detail to Dr. Anthony Fauci should be information that originated within the HHS OIG, not NIH. Hence, Empower Oversight has submitted a new request to HHS OIG. Records requested include costs for Dr. Fauci’s security detail in 2020, 2021, and 2022, along with all communication HHS-OIG may have engaged in regarding these costs.
If you have first-hand information you’d like to disclose to assist Empower Oversight with these inquiries, please contact us confidentially here.