Former Fauci Aide Pleads Guilty To Dodging Federal Public Records Laws

David Morens, a longtime aide to former top government infectious disease official Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to evade federal public record laws in connection with communications about coronavirus research grants.

The plea comes three weeks after Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) grilled Fauci about his relationship with Morens. At the Senate hearing, Fauci declined to answer questions, exercising his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. Two years ago, Fauci told a House Committee investigating the country’s response to the Covid pandemic that Morens’ actions were “wrong” and that he had not participated in them.

Morens, 78, had boasted in a 2021 email released by the House panel that he knew how to “make emails disappear after I am FOIA'd” to avert disclosure under the federal open records law.

He entered the guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, according to court records.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis set sentencing for Nov. 12. Morens faces a maximum of five years in prison on the felony conspiracy charge and a fine of up to $250,000. However, most defendants are sentenced under federal guidelines that typically call for sentences far short of the maximum, particularly for first-time offenders.

Criminal prosecutions stemming from efforts to evade Freedom of Information Act requests are exceedingly rare.

However, Morens and other former top officials at the National Institutes of Health, including Fauci, have come under intense scrutiny in recent years from Republican lawmakers and outside groups over their decisions related to the pandemic.

One particular focus of NIH critics has been how officials there dealt with the possibility that the virus emerged from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than jumping from animals to people.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and other Republicans have accused Fauci of covering up a potential lab leak. Paul believes coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of NIH and which Fauci led for decades, likely sparked the pandemic.

Fauci has long rejected those accusations. In taking the Fifth during his appearance before Paul’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month, Fauci said he thought Paul was trying to entrap him. The committee later voted on party lines to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, with Paul arguing that Fauci couldn’t invoke the Fifth due to the pardon President Joe Biden granted him last year covering all his official actions dating back to 2014.

Fauci is not charged with or accused of wrongdoing in the case against Morens and is not referred to by name in court filings. Fauci distanced himself from Morens at the 2024 House hearing, saying he and Morens didn’t work together closely. Morens had been a senior adviser to Fauci.

A statement of facts Morens agreed to as part of the plea deal says he repeatedly consulted behind the scenes with an outside researcher, Peter Daszak, to prepare briefings for Fauci that undercut theories that the coronavirus pandemic emerged from a Chinese laboratory that worked with Daszak and his research group, EcoHealth Alliance, on a NIAID-funded grant.

Daszak is not named in the court documents, which refer to him as "co-conspirator 1," but records released through congressional investigations into Morens’ actions confirm Daszak’s identity.

Daszak did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Morens’ guilty plea.

The court documents also refer to a second, unnamed co-conspirator identified in records made public by lawmakers as Gerald Keusch, a physician and former associate director of Boston University’s infectious disease lab. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

While the court filings describe Daszak and Keusch as co-conspirators, they have not been charged with any crime.

According to the factual statement agreed to by Morens and prosecutors, Morens conspired with Keusch to help restore the grant for EcoHealth Alliance after the NIH terminated it in 2020 following allegations that Covid emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was researching coronaviruses through the grant.

Anticipating that their communications would be the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests, Morens, Daszak and Keusch agreed in writing to hide their exchanges by using Morens’ personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH email account, the court filing says.

The three exchanged non-public NIH information; talked about their efforts to influence NIH to fund EcoHealth Alliance again; exchanged edits to draft letters addressed to NIH leadership for EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak; and “back-channeled” information to a person identified as

"Senior NIAID Official 1," according to the statement of facts. That person was Fauci, according to the records released through congressional investigations.

Republicans and Democrats sharply criticized Morens at a May 2024 House hearing, saying his actions showed a disrespect for the public’s right to know.

The Health and Human Services Department that same month barred Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding for failing to comply with rules designed to oversee grantees’ work.

Morens also admitted Tuesday to conspiring to receive illegal gratuities from Daszak, including two bottles of The Prisoner Red Napa Valley wine, in exchange for what Daszak called Morens’ “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” The statement of facts in the case says Daszak told Morens he “might” also be treated to meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in New York, Washington and Paris, although the court filings don’t say whether those meals took place.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop four other felony counts Morens faced, essentially folding those obstruction-of-justice and concealment-of-records charges into the single conspiracy charge Morens admitted to.

“Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so,” his defense attorney, Timothy Belevetz, said in an emailed statement.