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🚨 BREAKING: Major Fauci advisor David Morens PLEADS GUILTY for conspiracy to defraud the US, DOJ announces

He was involved in HIDING federal records during COVID.

This is HUGE!

Morens could BLOW THE WHISTLE regarding even more would-be criminal activity by Fauci, if not for… pic.twitter.com/LxQWGX2cGy

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 18, 2026

Former Fauci adviser David Morens pleads guilty to conspiracy over concealed COVID-Era records

A longtime senior adviser to Anthony Fauci has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from a scheme to hide government communications and obstruct public records laws during the COVID-19 pandemic.

David M. Morens, 78, of Chester, Maryland, entered the plea on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. He admitted to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said the conduct involved efforts to evade the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act in connection with a terminated National Institutes of Health grant on bat coronaviruses.

Morens served as a senior adviser in the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 2006 to 2022. According to the Justice Department, he and at least two co-conspirators acted after NIH terminated a grant titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The grant had been awarded to an organization (referred to in court documents as Company 1) and its principal (Co-Conspirator 1); a portion supported work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The termination followed allegations linking the pandemic’s origins to that laboratory.

Court records show the group then worked to restore the funding and to counter the idea that the virus had leaked from a lab. Anticipating FOIA requests, they agreed in writing to conduct sensitive discussions on Morens’s personal Gmail account rather than his official NIH email. Through that private channel, they exchanged non-public NIH information, coordinated attempts to influence the agency to resume funding, edited draft letters to NIH leadership, and passed “back-channel” information to a senior NIAID official.

Morens also admitted that he and Co-Conspirator 1 arranged illegal gratuities. The co-conspirator sent wine to Morens’s home as thanks for “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” In response, Morens identified an official act he could perform—authoring a scientific commentary in a prominent medical journal that argued COVID-19 had natural origins. Additional benefits discussed included meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.

The maximum penalty for the conspiracy charge is five years in prison. Sentencing will be set by a federal judge after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors. Defense attorney Tim Belevetz said Morens “has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.”

Reporting based on earlier congressional records has identified Co-Conspirator 1 as Peter Daszak, formerly of EcoHealth Alliance, though the Justice Department filing does not name the individuals or the organization.

The plea marks a significant development in the ongoing scrutiny of the federal government's handling of coronavirus research funding and transparency during the pandemic.