Former top Fauci advisor pleads guilty to hiding records on origins of COVID, defrauding US

A former senior advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded guilty Tuesday for conspiring to hide federal records about the origins of the COVID-19 virus and “to defraud the United States,” according to the Department of Justice.

Dr. David Morens,78, served as senior advisor to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022, where Fauci was director (1984-2022). In a 2021 email to a co-conspirator, Morens flaunted his ability to conceal correspondence in case he was to come under investigation.

“i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Morens wrote according to The Hill.

He also reassured the recipient he had “deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail,” The Hill reports.

Morens and his two “co-conspirators” attempted to “counter the narrative that COVID-19 leaked from a lab,” according to a DOJ press release. To hide their communications from federal records, the three partners used Morens’ personal Gmail account instead of his official NIH email account, which is required for federal correspondence.

Their correspondence included exchanging non-public NIH information, edits on drafts for official letters to NIH leadership, and schemes to “‘back-channel’ information to Senior NIAID Official 1” – a reference to Fauci, according to Politico.

“I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble,” Morens wrote to EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, in communications released by the House committee, according to The Hill.

Daszak’s name does not appear in court documents for Morens, but he is allegedly one of the two co-conspirators referenced by the DOJ press release, Politico reports, citing congressional investigation records. Morens and his co-conspirators arranged for expensive gifts such as nice wines and fine dining for their covert schemes, according to the DOJ.

Morens’ confession follows Fauci’s silence at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in July, when he pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. The committee voted along party lines Aug. 6 to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, which brings the charge before the DOJ.

Morens, a Maryland resident, is scheduled to face sentencing Nov. 12 before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, AP News reports. His felony charge of “conspiring to defraud the U.S. government” is punishable by up to five years in prison, although most first-time offenders do not receive the maximum sentence, according to the DOJ.

“By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so,” defense attorney Tim Belevetz said in a statement after the plea hearing.