An indicted former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge Tuesday stemming from a scheme to conceal government records on coronavirus research grants from investigators probing the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
David Morens, a former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) official, copped to conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. He faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing.
“By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so,” said his defense attorney Timothy Belevetz.
As part of the plea deal, Morens, 78, admitted that between April 2020 and June 2023 he conspired with two unnamed co-conspirators and others to “defraud the United States by hampering, hindering, impeding, or obstructing, by craft, trickery, deceit or dishonest means, the lawful and legitimate functions” of public health agencies from complying with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Federal Records Act (FRA) – including by destroying and concealing records related to the termination and restoration of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for research on bat coronaviruses.
Morens admitted to conducting government business through his personal Gmail account following the termination of the NIH bat coronavirus research grant to intentionally hide his communications with his co-conspirators from FOIA requests and public view.
Morens, then a senior adviser to Fauci, pledged to help alleged co-conspirator 1 – believed to be Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of Manhattan-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance – counter the narrative that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China.
Over Gmail, Morens and his alleged co-conspirators exchanged “non-public NIH information,” discussed “their efforts to influence NIH to fund” EcoHealth Alliance, exchanged edits to draft letters to NIH leadership on behalf of Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance; and “back-channel” information to Fauci, referred to as “Senior NIAID Official 1” in court documents.
Morens further admitted in his guilty plea that Daszak provided him with “illegal gratuities,” including two bottles of The Prisoner Red Napa Valley Wine — which retail for about $40.
The wine was delivered to the former public health official’s Maryland home as a gift for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.”
Daszak described wine as his “phase II gift” to Morens, per a June 2020 email included in the guilty plea, and suggested he would provide Morens with additional perks, such as meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.
EcoHealth received grants totaling $4 million and $7.5 million in 2014 and 2020, respectively, some of which eventually funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
EcoHealth and Daszak were barred from receiving federal funds for five years in January 2025. It’s unclear if the nonprofit is still operating.
After Morens’ guilty plea, FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau’s investigation “remains ongoing.”
“No one is above the law,” Patel wrote on X.
Morens’ guilty plea comes less than two weeks after Fauci was held in contempt by the Senate Homeland Security Committee after he refused to answer questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci, who received a sweeping preemptive pardon from then-President Joe Biden for any potential crimes committed between January 2014 and January 2025, was referred to the Justice Department by the committee for potential prosecution.
When testifying before a House subcommittee on June 3, 2024, Fauci told lawmakers, “With respect to his recent testimony before this Subcommittee, I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth, or his emails.”
However, Fauci’s diary entries — released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) last month — indicate the former COVID czar had several private discussions with Morens about the bat coronavirus research grants.
