OPINION:
On Aug. 18, David M. Morens, senior adviser to Anthony Fauci during COVID-19’s rampage worldwide, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge to defraud the United States.
Prosecutors accompanied the plea with a nine-page “stipulation of facts” that spelled out the evidence Mr. Morens would have had at trial. He signed it. He will be sentenced in November in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The fact sheet, reviewed by The Washington Times, provides details of a Morens-centric conspiracy within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The National Institutes of Health branch was then led by Dr. Fauci, America’s public face for combating the runaway coronavirus.
The conspiracy had several goals:
- Keep documents away from journalists filing Freedom of Information Act requests.
- Protect EcoHealth Alliance, the New York nonprofit financially tied to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- Protect the lab by bolstering the side that says the virus originated naturally, not artificially, inside the Wuhan Institute.
- Hide Mr. Morens’ role in defending EcoHealth inside the Fauci realm.
The argument over nature was particularly crucial to Peter Daszak, a British zoologist who led EcoHealth. This is because the NIH and Dr. Fauci’s agency gave Mr. Daszak a $3.7 million grant in 2014 to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.
Mr. Daszak then awarded a subcontract to the Wuhan lab.
Critics say China put the grant toward a project called “gain of function” research that ultimately produced COVID-19.
“Dr. Daszak is at the center of controversy related to his use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup said in 2024 when he chaired the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Mr. Daszak denies the connection and asserts that the COVID-19 virus originated among the bats.
The Justice Department says Mr. Daszak, while vehemently defending EcoHealth, played a critical role in helping Mr. Morens conceal federal documents.
Prosecutors call him out as “Co-Conspirator 1” in the original indictment and the Aug. 18 statement of facts.
We know Co-Conspirator 1 is Mr. Daszak because the indictment cites the 2014 NIH grant by contract number, which federal records show went to EcoHealth and Mr. Daszak.
Second, emails produced by Mr. Wenstrup’s committee show Mr. Daszak’s name in places where the indictment refers to the recipient as “Co-Conspirator 1.”
Here is how the prosecution summarized Mr. Morens’ and Mr. Daszak’s roles.
“The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the United States, and the records generated by its agencies and employees responsible for leading the nation’s response to the virus had significant historical, institutional, scientific, medical, and public value,” it reads.
“The Defendant, David M. Morens, plus Co-Conspirator 1, [Mr. Daszak] … and others conspired to defraud and commit offenses against the United States by hiding from public view various federal records related to this significant historical event and during this emergency period.”
The prosecution added, “In sum, Morens knowingly and willfully conspired with Co-Conspirator 1 [Daszak] … and others to evade FOIA and violate the [Federal Records Act] by concealing, destroying, and attempting to destroy federal records used to facilitate his work as a public official and as Senior Advisor to [Dr. Fauci].”
How did the conspiracy work? The centerpiece was Mr. Morens’ Gmail account, which he then hid from FOIA officers searching government databases to retrieve his communications. A key objective was to influence Dr. Fauci to believe in EcoHealth Alliance’s supposed innocence.
Early in the pandemic, on April 26, 2020, Mr. Daszak wrote to Mr. Morens.
“David — We’ll communicate with you via gmail from now on,” Mr. Daszak wrote.
The fact sheet states: “Thereafter, Morens, [Mr. Daszak] … and others plotted and repeatedly expressed their intention to conceal federal records to evade FOIA and provided information to Senior NIAID Official 1 [Mr. Fauci] that was favorable to Co-Conspirator 1 [Daszak] and Company #1 [EcoHealth].”
A year later, as the lab leak debate raged in Washington, Mr. Morens began preparing Mr. Daszak to brief Dr. Fauci.
Mr. Morens told him, “It might be best to connect you two, in an off-the-record manner’’ because “we are getting FOIA’d non stop, so it’s most important that [Fauci] not have anything on the record that could come back to bite.”
After the indictment, EcoHealth fired Mr. Daszak in January 2025. Shortly thereafter, HHS debarred the nonprofit from gaining federal contracts for five years.
Whether the gain-of-function at Wuhan produced the deadly virus is still debated by scientists, but the FBI concluded that the virus “likely” originated in a lab. Wuhan city is where the first cases showed up and where the communist regime launched an elaborate cover-up.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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