Washington — A former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from a scheme to hide federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under a deal reached with federal prosecutors in Maryland, David Morens, 78, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. He faces up to five years in prison.
Morens, a senior adviser at NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022, was indicted in April and charged with five counts for what prosecutors said at the time was his role in a scheme to defraud the U.S. by shielding federal records related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the public.
Tim Belevetz, a lawyer for Morens, said, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.”
Prosecutors said Morens worked with two co-conspirators. The first, “co-conspirator 1,” served as the president and CEO of a New York-based nonprofit that received a grant in 2014 titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, received a subaward from the New York group on the coronavirus grant, prosecutors said, though the National Institutes of Health terminated the award in April 2020 following allegations that COVID-19 emerged from the lab. The NIAID is part of the NIH.
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The second co-conspirator was described in charging documents as a physician, scientist and professor who worked for an academic institute that received federal grants.
Emails made public by the GOP-led Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic indicate that the New York-based nonprofit is the EcoHealth Alliance and co-conspirator 1 is its president, Peter Daszak.
The indictment stemmed from several Freedom of Information Act requests NIAID received between April 2020 and December 2022 that sought communications between Morens, the New York-based nonprofit and its president.
According to the guilty plea, Morens and the two co-conspirators agreed to exchange emails about COVID-19 and its origins, as well as the terminated coronavirus grant, through Morens’ personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH account, to hide federal records and evade public records laws.
Morens and his co-conspirators also used his Gmail account to share nonpublic information from the NIH about COVID-19 and “back-channel” information to an unidentified senior NIAID official, who appears to be Anthony Fauci, the institute’s former director, according to court filings.
Morens also admitted as part of his guilty plea that he and co-conspirator 1 conspired to pay illegal gratuities. Court records show that Morens received two bottles of wine in June 2020 from co-conspirator 1 for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans,” which were delivered to his Maryland house.
The agreement states co-conspirator 1 also told Morens in an email to his personal account that he could provide additional items of value, such as a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Congressional Republicans investigated the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab and Fauci’s handling of the pandemic.
Fauci and Morens each appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2024. During his appearance, Morens was questioned about emails suggesting he was attempting to bypass public-records rules.
Fauci distanced himself from the investigation into Morens in 2024 and told lawmakers that Morens was not an adviser to him on “institute policy or other substantive issues.” Fauci also acknowledged that many of Morens’ actions were wrong and violated agency policy, and denied using his personal email to conduct official business.
Fauci has continued to come under scrutiny from Republicans in Congress. Text messages and diary entries from Fauci during the pandemic were made public by the GOP in recent weeks, and Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month. During that appearance, Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer senators’ questions.
The Senate Homeland Security panel voted earlier this month to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress following the hearing. The referral has been sent to the Justice Department.