Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty Tuesday, Aug. 18, to conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with concealing federal records during the COVID pandemic.
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Morens was a long-time official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He worked with NIAID for 20 years and served as a senior adviser in the Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022.
Federal prosecutors charged Morens in April for working with two co-conspirators to conceal government communications regarding a federal grant titled “Understand the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” (RELATED: Anthony Fauci’s Biggest Defender? Why Critics Are Scrutinizing Christine Grady)
The National Institutes of Health, NIAID’s parent agency, had previously terminated the grant, which funded bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Morens and his co-conspirators sought to restore the funding by using Morens’ private email account — rather than his official government email address — to keep the records hidden and evade public records laws.
Additionally, the trio pledged to suppress theories that COVID originated from a laboratory leak to restore research efforts. Court records show Morens also accepted gifts from a co-conspirator, including expensive dinners and wine. (RELATED: Hannah Arendt’s Resonant Warning About Public Lying in the Age of Anthony Fauci)
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“By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so,” Tim Belevetz, Morens’ attorney, said in a statement.
A federal district judge is scheduled to sentence Morens in November. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines typically call for less severe penalties.
Moren’s plea agreement comes after a recent Senate hearing in which Fauci, the former director of NIAID, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer lawmakers’ questions about his pandemic-era diary entries. (RELATED: Fifth Amendment Fauci’s Narcissism Destroyed Faith in Scientific Methodology)
On Aug. 6, the Senate Homeland Security panel voted, in an 8-to-5 decision, to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. Attention now turns to the Justice Department to see if criminal charges will follow the Senate’s contempt vote.
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