Dr. David Morens, former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and once an associate to Dr. Anthony Fauci,pleaded guilty Thursday to a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in relation to efforts to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the guilty plea Tuesday.
In April, the DOJ brought charges against Morens, 78, alleging conspiracy against the U.S., and he was indicted.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had uncovered evidence in 2024 that Morens had used his personal email, outside the scope of FOIA requests, to discuss National Institutes of Health grants with the infectious disease group EcoHealth Alliance.
In communications released by the House committee, Morens wrote to EcoHealth President Peter Daszak, “I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”
In a 2021 email, Morens wrote, “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Morens wrote in a separate email. “Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”
He faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy.
When reached for comment, Morens’s attorney Tim Belevetz told The Hill, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so.”
In his own 2024 House hearing, Fauci distanced himself from Morens, questioning whether the former colleague even reported directly to him.
“With respect to his recent testimony before this subcommittee, I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth or his emails. It is important to point out for the record that despite his title, and even though he was helpful to me in writing scientific papers, Dr. Morens was not an advisor to me on [NIAID] policy, or other substantive issues,” Fauci said at the time.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who once accused Fauci of throwing Morens “to the wolves,” reacted to the plea on the social platform X, writing, “Could his plea involve implicating Anthony Fauci?”
