Fauci Advisor Indicted for Conspiracy, Deleting and Concealing Records; Faces 51 Years in Prison

David Morens, a former senior advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has been indicted by the Department of Justice for conspiracy against the United States, two counts of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations, and two counts of concealment, removal, or mutilation of records. The indictment is the first action the DOJ has taken against public health officials for alleged attempts to cover up the lab-leak origin.

President Donald Trump told the New York Post on March 31 that the DOJ is “looking into” Dr. Fauci’s pardon to determine if it is invalid, but a 5-year statute of limitations is rapidly approaching related to Fauci’s denial that the US government was funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. During a Senate Committee hearing on May 11, 2021, Fauci told Senator Rand Paul that NIAID “categorically has not funded gain of function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” Senator Paul has been advocating for Fauci to be indicted for lying to Congress. Dr. Fauci received a blanket pardon from President Biden on his last day in office, but many believe it can be challenged because it was signed with an autopen.

Morens was grilled by members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic during a hearing in May 2024 for using his private email for government communication, deleting emails to evade FOIA requests, and asking EcoHealth Alliance CEO Peter Daszak for a kickback.

In one email, Morens explicitly states that he uses his personal Gmail account to evade FOIA requests and that he actively deletes emails he doesn’t want reported by the New York Times. Morens also wrote to Daszak and Gerald Keusch that he learned from the “FOIA lady” how to “make emails disappear” after he is FOIA’d but before the search begins. The FOIA lady was later identified as Margaret Moore, who has not yet been indicted on charges and pleaded a 5th amendment right against self-incrimination when she was questioned in a closed-door deposition on October 4, 2024.

Morens, 79, faces up to 51 years in prison if convicted on all charges. There are two co-conspirators mentioned in the indictment but not named. These are believed to be Daszak and Keusch, meaning they may be the next former officials to face DOJ indictments.

“These allegations represent a profound abuse of trust at a time when the American people needed it most — during the height of a global pandemic,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “As alleged in the indictment, Dr. Morens and his co-conspirators deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19. Government officials have a solemn duty to provide honest, well-grounded facts and advice in service of the public interest — not to advance their own personal or ideological agendas.”

The indictment also notes that Morens and Daszak would “back-channel” information to “Senior NIAID Official 1,” which is understood to be Dr. Fauci. Daszak gifted wine to Morens for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” Morens allegedly suggested that he could author a paper in a prominent medical journal advocating that COVID-19 had natural origins.

That paper, titled “The Origins of COVID-19 and Why It Matters,” has Morens listed as the leading author. Keusch was a co-author on the paper, as was Jeffery Taubenberger, who currently serves in Dr. Fauci’s old position as the acting Director of NIAID. Taubenberger is also known for reviving the 1918 Spanish Flu from a dead body and being an avid supporter of gain-of-function research. In a video posted eight months ago on the NIH YouTube channel, Director Bhattacharya tells Taubenberger that his Spanish Flu experiment was “really cool.”

In the origins paper co-authored by Morens, Keusch, and Taubenberger, they claim that a lab leak is “highly unlikely” because no lab had the virus, and the genetic sequence did not exist in a sequence database. According to an investigation published in the DRASTIC report, at least 100 bat betacoronavirus sequences remain unpublished. Also, there is one published sequence, RaTG13, that is 96.2% similar to Sars-CoV2. The authors also claimed in the paper that China has equivalent lab safety practices, policies, and training to the U.S., despite documented failures and inadequate training at the Wuhan Institute.

Morens also co-authored a 2020 paper with Dr. Fauci, in which they posit that advances in civilization have led to a significant increase in the spread of infectious diseases. Morens and Fauci advocate for the “rebuilding of infrastructures of human existence” and “reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places.” They conclude that humans’

“increasingly extreme alterations of the environment induce increasingly extreme backlashes from nature.”

The Morens indictment is the first significant criminal action taken against public health officials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic related to its origins and/or the cover-up of gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The time is ticking to take action against Dr. Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress about GoF research, which he still continues to deny. Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance were officially debarred from receiving federal research funds for five years. After this Morens indictment, there may be additional repercussions to Daszak for his role as a co-conspirator in this case.