From Public Servant to Conspirator: Fauci Advisor Pleads Guilty

A former senior advisor to Anthony Fauci admitted he conspired to hide communications in which he plotted ways to fund “research” claiming COVID-19 came from bats, not a lab. The communications were public property because David Morens was a federal employee scheming ways to allocate taxpayer money.  

Morens, a former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) employee, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to felony conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. He was at NIAID when he hampered, hindered, impeded, or obstructed, as the Justice Department put it, “by craft, trickery, deceit or dishonest means legitimate functions of the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of NIAID and all other federal health departments.”

The plea deal dismisses four other felony charges that involve falsifying records, hiding records, and aiding and abetting.

Co-conspirators

The deal’s stipulation of facts also includes the admission that there were several other co-conspirators. It repeatedly alludes to “Co-Conspirator 1,” “Co-Conspirator 2,” and “others.” It says that Morens and his co-plotters “conspired to defraud and commit offenses against the United States.”

Congressional investigations suggest “Co-Conspirator 1” is Peter Daszak, who headed EcoHealth Alliance on an NIAID-funded grant. The plea document includes a screenshot of a message in which Morens addresses “Peter.” Co-Conspirator 2 is believed to be Gerald Keusch, a doctor and former associate director of Boston University’s infectious disease lab. He too had received government funding for his work.

Morens, 78, is a doctor who was a federal employee for most of his career. He worked in the federal public health system for a total of 36 years. He was in the Army Reserves for 15 years. And from 2006 through the end of 2022, he was an NIAID senior advisor. That role ended at the same time Fauci retired, but Morens continued working at NIAID until 2024.

Facilitating Funding

The government says that on April 24, 2020, Co-Conspirator 1 got a letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) letting him know that his grant funding for research on bat coronaviruses had been cancelled. He forwarded the letter to Co-Conspirator 2, who told him to challenge the termination but not before a $7 million NIH grant for the Emerging Infectious Disease Regional Center came through. Co-Conspirator 1 did eventually get that grant, as Morens had subversively intervened to make it happen.

The next day, after learning that Co-Conspirator 1’s grant was cancelled, Morens asked the two co-conspirators to move their conversations to his Gmail account. “Thereafter, Morens, Co-Conspirator 1, Co-Conspirator 2, and others plotted and repeatedly expressed their intention to conceal federal records to evade [Freedom of Information Act searches] and provided information to Senior NIAID Official 1 that was favorable to Co-Conspirator 1,” according to the plea document.

The group discussed on private communication platforms how Morens could leverage his position as a senior federal health official to help Co-Conspirator 1 and his company get funding while combating the growing narrative that Covid came from a lab. One of those ways included Morens writing and placing an article in a prominent publication bolstering the bat-origin narrative. The article was submitted July 3, 2020, and eventually published. When telling his co-conspirators what he was doing, Morens said, “I need to keep this off of govt email and govt phone text.”

Morens also used his knowledge of the federal health system to help Co-Conspirator 1 craft letters to NIH regarding his grant. In its document, the DOJ includes a screenshot of a message in which Morens tells Co-Conspirator 1 how to sound more convincing that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was too secure to leak the virus, telling him:

Peter, in this para[graph] you might say that the lab was built under international safety engineering standards [and] adheres to international safety practice standards … and [that] the lead WIV staff were trained in safety in the United States by a known authority running the BSL-4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. You might also say that despite the claim of one individual, no safety concerns are known to have been alleged by others including safety experts.

Avoiding FOIA Searches

Morens also prepped Co-Conspirator 1 for a meeting with a senior NIAID official. He told him what issues the official would be worried about. Records once again show Morens deliberately working to keep the public in the dark. He told Co-Conspirator 1 that it might be best to connect him with the official “in an off the record manner” because “we are getting FOIA’d non stop, so its [sic] most important that [Senior NIAID Official 1] not have anything on the record that could come back to bite.”

In 2021, Co-Conspirator 2 got involved by relaying edits by Morens to Co-Conspirator 1. Co-Conspirator 2 relayed a message from Moren:

I just spent some time on the phone with David. He is concerned about the privacy of text and other messages from his cell phone to you and me because he has been using a government phone which permits personal conversations as well. So even things via gmail sent and received on his cell phone could be FOIA’able.

Getting Gifts

By pleading guilty, Morens also admits to taking gifts for his conspiracy. Co-Conspirator 1 gave him two bottles of red Napa Valley wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” The wine came with this message:

This is the first of what I hope will be a continued series of expressions of gratitude for you advice, support, and behind-the-scenes shenanigans in my battle against your bosses [sic] boss, his boss, and the ultimate boss on the hill. It takes courage and commitment to do what you’ve done, given your job and the vindictive nature of the Administration.

Morens was promised more goodies. After sending him the wine, Co-Conspirator 1 told him, “Consider this my phase II gift. Phase III might actually involve a meal — the Michelin starred restaurants [that] are opening in Paris-DC and New York will do eventually!”

Implicating Fauci?

The looming question now, as noted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is: Does Moren’s plea implicate Anthony Fauci?

Paul has had his eye on Fauci since the Covid era, when the head of NIAID was riding high as the dictator of health edicts. When suggestions that Fauci be granted immunity emerged, Paul said it would be better to provide leniency to those close to Fauci with the hopes that they’ll out him. Did something like that happen here?

The maximum sentence for Moren’s offense is five years in prison. But judges don’t normally impose the max, especially on those who plead guilty and avoid a trial.