Former Fauci aide pleads guilty to COVID-19 conspiracy
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former senior adviser, Dr. David Morens,pleaded guilty to fraud charges for concealing COVID-19-related records from the public,perhaps related to the virus’s origins. Morens, who had been investigated by Congress for using personal email to conduct official business and allegedly working to hide records about a $3.1 million grant involving research at the Wuhan Institute of virology, coordinated with EcoHealth Alliance founder Peter Daszak. The examination suggests Morens and others aimed to conceal evidence and counter narratives supporting a lab leak origin of COVID-19. Even though Fauci minimized his relationship with Morens in testimony, evidence shows they collaborated extensively and that Morens briefed Fauci before key meetings. Fauci, during his Senate testimony, invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times and was ultimately held in contempt after refusing to testify further, with charges referred to the Department of Justice.
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former senior adviser pleaded guilty to fraud charges for concealing evidence from the public that may relate to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal court documents.
Dr. David Morens, a longtime science adviser to the 43-year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States after being indicted in April. The maximum sentence is five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
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Morens, 78, first became the subject of congressional investigations in 2023 when the House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic discovered that he had used his personal Gmail account to conduct official business with the intent of avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests.
In 2021, Morens instructed colleagues to use his personal email address to circumvent FOIA and that he would “delete anything [he did not] want to see in the New York Times.”
The investigation into Morens revealed that he had a close personal friendship with Dr. Peter Daszak, head of the private firm EcoHealth Alliance, which received government funding for research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
EcoHealth Alliance’s research into bat coronaviruses conducted at the Wuhan lab and funded by NIAID has been suspected as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, by those who do not believe that the virus came from animal-to-human transmission.
Morens and at least two other co-conspirators were charged on April 16 with concealing records regarding the $3.1 million grant “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” that included a $600,000 subaward to the Wuhan lab.
Authorities allege that Morens and two co-conspirators worked together to reinstate the grant and counter the narrative that COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak.
Although Daszak is not named in Morens’s plea agreement, the document does reference “Co-Conspirator 1” as the author of an email previously reported by the Washington Examiner as having been authored by Daszak and sent to Morens in April 2020.
The email from Daszak to Morens and others involved in the alleged conspiracy confirms that EcoHealth Alliance personnel will “communicate with [Morens] via gmail from now on,” confirming that Morens requested to discuss COVID-19 only on nongovernment platforms.
The plea agreement says that Morens and his co-conspirators thereafter “plotted and repeatedly expressed their intention to conceal federal records to evade FOIA and provided information to Senior NIAID Official 1 that was favorable to Co-Conspirator 1 and Company #1.”
The unnamed official is likely Fauci, then the face of the federal COVID-19 response.
Fauci during his public testimony before the House Oversight Committee in 2024 downplayed his relationship with Morens, telling the committee “he should not have been doing that” when asked about using personal emails for government business.
But the pair co-authored more than 50 scientific papers together during Morens’s time at the agency from 2006 to 2022, and Morens briefed Fauci before key White House Coronavirus Task Force meetings as his top scientific adviser.
FAUCI IGNORED REPORTS OF COVID-19 VACCINE SIDE EFFECTS, NEW DOCUMENTS SHOW
Fauci on July 29 invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times during a subpoenaed appearance before the Senate homeland security committee.
Republicans on the committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify despite receiving a pardon for the period in question from former President Joe Biden. Charges have been submitted to the Department of Justice.
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