DOJ Indicts Fauci Adviser Over Alleged Cover-Up Of COVID Records

The Department of Justice on Tuesday charged a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing him of concealing key records tied to investigations into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

David Morens, 78, faces multiple charges, including conspiracy against the United States, destruction and falsification of records in federal investigations, concealment of official documents, and aiding and abetting.

The indictment, unsealed Monday in federal court in Maryland, also references two unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly “concealed, removed, destroyed and caused the concealment, and removal of federal records to evade FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and FRA [Federal Records Act].”

Morens, who served as a senior adviser to Fauci from 2006 through 2022, is accused of conducting official business through a private email account and seeking guidance from an NIH FOIA official on how to avoid records requests, according to communications first reported in May 2024.

“[T]here is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail [sic], or hand it to him at work or at his house,” Morens wrote in one April 21, 2021, email. “He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

In a February 24 email, Morens wrote: “[I] learned from our foia [sic] lady here how to make emails disappear after I am foia’d [sic] but before the search starts.”

“Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail [sic],” he added.

In another message dated September 9, 2021, Morens wrote that he would “always communicate on gmail [sic] because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly” and “delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.”

Morens also oversaw a controversial NIH grant awarded in 2014 to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which later directed U.S. taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research involving bat coronaviruses.

“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,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

“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.”