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Ironic Email Mixup Results In DOJ Investigation Into Doctor Who Has Touted Potential COVID Treatment

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May 1, 2020 DailyWire.com

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Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Conservative commentator Jerome Corsi speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. Robert Meuller has allegedly been surveilling Corsi and pressuring him to testify against Trump because of Corsi's public "hypothesis" that emails between then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta may be released by Wikileaks "in a future batch" of documents, Corsi said in his December 9 complaint. Photographer: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg — Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

An email accidentally sent to exactly the “wrong” person has prompted a Department of Justice examination of communications from a New York-based doctor who has been reportedly in frequent contact with both the White House and Fox News about a potential treatment for COVID-19.

According to The Washington Post, which first reported on the missent email and consequent DOJ review, right-leaning commentator Jerome Corsi accidentally sent an email intended for Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko to federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky, who was a member of Mueller’s team. Zelensky, who has since been put in charge of investigating coronavirus-related crimes at the Maryland U.S. attorney’s office, responded to the email by requesting all of Corsi’s communications with Zelenko, a request with which Corsi says he is fully complying.

Under his directive to oversee COVID-related crimes, Zelinsky has already “charged a medley of fraudsters for peddling fake cures, selling personal protective equipment they didn’t actually have or running more complicated Medicare reimbursement schemes, and officials say tips are coming in droves,” the Post reports.

Corsi was one of the subjects of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ultimately found no evidence for the “Trump-Russia collusion” conspiracy theory. Corsi refused to plead guilty after Mueller’s prosecutors attempted to get him to sign a plea agreement saying he had lied in his initial interview about his role in the WikiLeaks email incident. Mueller’s team ultimately did not charge Corsi with any crime.

Corsi addressed the email mixup in his daily podcast on Thursday after the Post reached out to him about Zelinsky’s interest in his communications with Zelenko. The Post reports (formatting adjusted):

During episodes of his daily podcast this week and in a YouTube video he posted late Thursday in response to questions from The Washington Post, Corsi said that Zelinsky responded to the unexpected email by reaching out to Corsi’s lawyer and requesting all of Corsi’s communications with Zelenko. Corsi said he and Zelenko are collaborating on a website designed to connect people with doctors. They have acted lawfully, Corsi added, but he plans to cooperate with the request and has handed over his communications. …

In his YouTube video, Corsi displayed the email he inadvertently sent to Zelinsky. In it, he wrote that Zelenko had “an FDA approved randomized test of HCQ underway” — a reference to hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial. …
By Corsi’s account, Zelinsky went to a government website that lists approved clinical trials and found no reference to Zelenko. After learning of the federal prosecutor’s interest, Corsi said he asked Zelenko about whether he had an FDA approved study — as Corsi said Zelenko had told another physician at a training event. Zelenko, Corsi said, then suggested his study was approved instead by an internal hospital panel.
“I pointed out to Zelenko, ‘But it’s not registered as an FDA test, and you can’t say it is,’ ” Corsi said Thursday on YouTube, adding that he did not feel Zelenko was trying to defraud anyone, but rather did not understand what it meant to have an FDA-approved test.

While Corsi came out of the “collusion” investigation relatively unscathed, his associate Roger Stone ended up getting slapped with over three years in prison after being convicted of lying to Congress, obstruction of an official proceeding and witness tampering — all “process crimes” that took place during the investigation rather than any previous crime.

The Post points out that Zelinsky was one of the four federal prosecutors who famously walked off the case after recommending that Stone serve seven to nine years behind bars, a recommendation so “exorbitant and unwarranted” that Attorney General William Barr felt compelled to override it.

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