A former top aide to Anthony Fauci has admitted to a federal crime for covering up records tied to the origins of COVID-19.
David Morens, 78, spent 16 years as a senior adviser in the Office of the Director at NIAID, the body headed by Fauci, before retiring in 2022. He’s now pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, a deal reached with prosecutors in Maryland. He could face up to five years behind bars.
The scheme centered on avoiding public scrutiny. When journalists and watchdogs filed Freedom of Information Act requests between 2020 and 2022 seeking Morens’ communications, he and two collaborators routed sensitive emails through his personal Gmail account instead of his official government address, deliberately keeping them out of reach of records law.
One of those collaborators has been identified as Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, the nonprofit that funneled a 2014 NIH grant on bat coronavirus research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second collaborator was a physician and academic whose institution also received federal funding and whose name has not been made public.
Prosecutors say the private email channel wasn’t just used to dodge FOIA requests, but also as a back door for passing along non-public NIH information, including to a senior NIAID official believed to be then-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci.
Morens further admitted to accepting improper gifts from Daszak in exchange for what he called his “behind-the-scenes” help, including two bottles of wine sent to his Maryland home in June 2020, with an offer of a Michelin-starred dinner floated as well.
Both Morens and Fauci testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2024, where lawmakers pressed Morens on emails that appeared to show him working around transparency rules. Fauci sought to put distance between himself and the scandal, insisting Morens never advised him on institutional policy and denying he’d ever used personal email for official work, while conceding that Morens’ conduct broke agency rules.
Fauci’s troubles with Congress haven’t ended there. After newly released texts and diary entries surfaced, he appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where he invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times rather than answer questions. The committee has since voted to hold him in contempt of Congress, and a criminal referral now sits with the Justice Department.
No honor among thieves! Sing Moren's sing!