Dr. David Morens, a former senior advisor to COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci, pled guilty Tuesday to crimes relating to a scheme to prevent public disclosure of information regarding the origin of the deadly COVID-19 virus.
Morens served as a senior advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), led by Fauci, from 2006 through 2022.
Morens pled guilty in a federal court to a conspiracy charge stemming from a scheme to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and the Federal Records Act in connection with communications about coronavirus research grants, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
According to the plea, Morens is guilty of manipulating research grants and hiding potential findings to squash any evidence that the virus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China as a result of U.S.-funded gain-of-function research.
As part of the cover-up, Morens says, he and his cohorts used his personal Gmail account to discuss official government matters, in order to prevent the content of the conversations from being obtained by the public through FOIA requests.
In particular, Morens’ personal Gmail account was used to:
- Exchange non-public NIH information.
- Correspond about their efforts to influence NIH to fund a company that would counter the lab-leak theory.
- Exchange edits to drafts of letters addressed to NIH leadership for that company and co-conspirators.
- “Back-channel” information to a senior NIAID.
Additionally, Morens pled guilty to destroying and concealing records related to the termination and restoration of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to a research company called EcoHealth Alliance for research on bat coronaviruses.
EcoHealth reportedly 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.
Two of the emails uncovered from Morens’ personal account appear particularly incriminating, The Hill recalls:
“In communications released by the House committee, Morens wrote to EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, ‘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.’
“In a 2021 email, Morens wrote, ‘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 in a separate email. ‘Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.’”
Morens and an unnamed accomplice also conspired to pay illegal gratuities in furtherance of their scheme, according to the plea.
Morens is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12 by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland. He faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States, the Justice Department explains:
“Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district judge determines sentencing after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.”
