Fauci adviser pleads guilty to charges connected to the concealment of COVID-19-related records
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 E...