Former Fauci Adviser Pleads Guilty
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David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States.
Morens faces up to five years in prison.
🚨 BREAKING: Anthony Fauci’s former senior advisor David Morens just pled GUILTY to conspiracy to defraud the US
It’s time for Morens to expose EVERYTHING about Fauci, as he pushes to get a lighter sentence 🔥
Morens was one of the key figures in burying COVID records to avoid… pic.twitter.com/O0OjPUNnii
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 18, 2026
A former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from a scheme to hide federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under a deal reached with federal prosecutors in Maryland, David Morens, 78, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. He faces up to five years in prison.
Morens, a senior adviser at NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022, was indicted in April and charged with five counts for what prosecutors said at the time was his role in a scheme to defraud the U.S. by shielding federal records related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the public.
Tim Belevetz, a lawyer for Morens, said, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.”
In announcing David Morens’ guilty plea, the Justice Department said he and two co-conspirators conspired during the COVID-19 pandemic to influence the National Institutes of Health after the agency terminated a grant involving bat coronavirus research.
According to the DOJ, Morens and the others used his personal Gmail account to conceal communications they anticipated could be subject to public records requests. The communications included non-public NIH information and efforts to influence agency funding and counter the theory that COVID-19 emerged from a laboratory.
The DOJ also said Morens admitted to conspiring to accept illegal gratuities, including wine and promised meals at Michelin-starred restaurants, in exchange for actions he could take in his official capacity.
According to his guilty plea, Morens, Co-Conspirator 1, Co-Conspirator 2, and others conspired during the COVID-19 pandemic to defraud the United States after NIH terminated Co-Conspirator 1’s grant. NIH terminated the grant, Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, based on allegations that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China. NIAID awarded the grant to Company 1 and Co-Conspirator 1, who made a subaward to the WIV.
Following the termination, Morens and Co-Conspirator 2 pledged to help Co-Conspirator 1 restore the termination of the bat coronavirus grant and counter the narrative that COVID-19 leaked from a lab. In anticipation that their communications would be requested through FOIA Requests, Morens, Co-Conspirator 1, and Co-Conspirator 2 agreed in writing to intentionally hide their communications from public view by corresponding using Morens’s personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH email account.
The co-conspirators used Morens’s personal Gmail account to exchange non-public NIH information; correspond about their efforts to influence NIH to fund Company 1; exchange edits to drafts of letters addressed to NIH leadership for Company 1 and Co-Conspirator 1; and “back-channel” information to Senior NIAID Official 1. According to court documents, each of these matters fell within Morens’s role as senior advisor and constituted federal records that needed to be created, maintained, and exchanged on government systems.
Additionally, as admitted to in his guilty plea, Morens and Co-Conspirator 1 conspired to pay illegal gratuities. Co-Conspirator 1 gifted Morens wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans,” and arranged for its delivery to Morens’s Maryland residence. Morens then allegedly identified an official act that he could perform to “deserve” the gift, which was to author a scientific commentary in a prominent medical journal advocating that COVID-19 had natural origins. Co-Conspirator 1 suggested he would provide Morens with additional things of value, including meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.
