The emails expose that they offered to modify 700 strains.
They were specifically removing the markers that would show they were modified,
in order to make them appear natural."
Your post,(#56) is exactly true !
That is how the essence of how any 'gain-of-function' is accomplished, by modification of an already existing genome,
and then altering it to cross over into another potential vulnerable species.
In this case, they removed the markers.