David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under Dr. Anthony Fauci, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to an alleged scheme to defraud the United States by concealing federal pandemic records.
Under a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Maryland, Morens faces up to five years in prison. Peter Daszak of the now-dissolved EcoHealth Alliance is believed to be his co-conspirator.
The indictment, unsealed in April, accuses Morens of shielding federal records from public view through communications with the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak. The scheme allegedly involved using personal email accounts to evade public records laws when communicating with officials, including Fauci, and sharing nonpublic National Institutes of Health (NIH) information. Morens also admitted to accepting illegal gratuities, such as wine from “co-conspirator 1”—widely identified as Daszak—for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.”
Reports indicate that Daszak conducted joint research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology using U.S. taxpayer funds approved by Fauci, made significant donations to Democrats, and maintained ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Until his debarment from federal grants by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2024, Daszak received millions in public money while allegedly hoarding thousands of bat virus samples in Chinese facilities.
In a statement ahead of Morens’ guilty plea, then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche noted: “Morens and his co-conspirators deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.” The remarks follow years of congressional investigations into the pandemic’s origins, during which Fauci and Morens previously testified before a House committee in 2024.
