Sen. Ron Johnson Calls for Public Pressure to Release Redacted Fauci Emails

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), on March 22, confronted the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra about his department’s clear dragging of feet when it comes to uncovering COVID-19’s likely lab origin.

Via Fox News:

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, confronted Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra about the unredacted emails from former National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci regarding the origins of COVID-19.

Johnson confronted Becerra during Wednesday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Biden’s budget request for HHS.

The Wisconsin Republican asked Becerra whether he believes it is important to “understand how the coronavirus originated,” to which Becerra responded “absolutely.

Johnson continued his line of questioning of the HHS secretary, asking Becerra if an employee in his department that is “spearheading the investigation” into COVID’s origins.

Becerra responded that the department’s inspector general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) are “doing a scrub.”

This is a classic case of “Who’s going to watch the watchmen?” Expecting the CDC and NIH to be forthright in their alleged investigation into COVID-19’s origins is like putting Jeffrey Dahmer in charge of the Milwaukee police homicide unit.

Johnson then specifically raised the issue of repeated FOIA requests:

Johnson noted there are “two primary methods for that:” Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and “congressional oversight.

“Would you agree that FOIA is generally subjected to more redactions than congressional oversight would be?” Johnson asked.

“I wouldn’t say that, but we do have to be careful of what goes into the public domain with respecting confidentiality,” Becerra responded.

“I understand, there’re some exceptions that are very explicit out there. A lot of them make sense,” Johnson interjected again. “But I would argue, as many people do, that congressional oversight really is not subject to those same redactions, particularly when we have security clearances and we can take a look at classified information that is appropriately redacted under FOIA.”

The Senator was referencing several requests his office had made to access Anthony Fauci’s official emails made in the capacity of his role as a public servant, all of which are well within Congressional purview. There is no legitimate reason to redact their contents when they are requested by an elected representative of the People.

A few days later, failing transparency by the agencies involved, Sen. Johnson appeared in an interview to call for public pressure to force the release of the remainder of Anthony Fauci’s emails.

There is very little leverage, truth be told, that people outside of the power structure have to force daylight onto the activities done in our name. Public pressure is one of the only tools that we have at our disposal.

We ought to take Johnson’s plea to heart and use it to maximum effect.