Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by concealing and destroying records pertaining to COVID-19 research grants and an investigation into the pandemic's origins. Morens, 78, entered his plea in a Maryland federal court on Tuesday and faces up to five years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 12.
Prosecutors stated that while working at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Morens used his personal email account to deliberately hide or discard documents. This occurred as he was receiving gifts from the CEO of a New York-based nonprofit seeking to revive a 2014 grant for research on bat coronaviruses. The indictment does not name the CEO or the nonprofit, but a related congressional investigation identified the organization as the EcoHealth Alliance.
Morens, who resigned from NIAID in 2022, had previously denied attempting to evade federal transparency laws. In early 2021, he wrote in an email, according to the indictment, that he had learned from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer how to make emails disappear before searches begin and that he had deleted most earlier emails after sending them to Gmail. EcoHealth Alliance had a working relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, an institute scrutinized in relation to theories about the coronavirus's emergence.
Scientists continue to debate the origins of the pandemic. Dr. Morens testified before a congressional committee in 2024 regarding his actions. His defense attorney, Tim Belevetz, stated that Morens has taken responsibility for his actions and will continue to do so. Dr. Fauci, who has faced criticism for his pandemic response, was not charged in this case.