USA18 August, 20262 min read
David Morens Pleads Guilty To Concealing COVID-19 Records In Greenbelt, Maryland
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Former NIAID senior adviser David Morens pled guilty to conspiring to conceal COVID-19 research records. He admitted conspiring to keep pandemic-related grant funding records out of public view.
Guilty plea in Greenbelt
David Morens, a former senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to COVID-19 pandemic and grant research funding in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Reuters said Morens, 78, was indicted in April and faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on November 12.
The Associated Press reported that Morens is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12 by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Defense attorney Tim Belevetz said, "By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so," after the plea hearing.
FOIA, Gmail, and Fauci
The Justice Department alleges Morens used his private email account to intentionally circumvent public records laws while employed at NIAID, including an effort to revive a controversial coronavirus grant. Reuters said prosecutors described a scheme to thwart public records requests received by the agency beginning in April 2020, and that Morens and others agreed to correspond using Morens’ personal email account instead of his government one.
The Daily Gazette reported that Morens is accused of using his private email account to intentionally circumvent public records laws while employed at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Daily Gazette also noted that in congressional testimony, Morens denied attempting to evade federal transparency laws by using his personal email, and that in July Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a congressional hearing.
Sentencing and broader fallout
Reuters said Morens’ plea related to the National Institutes of Health’s decision to cancel a research grant related to bat coronavirus, and prosecutors said Morens pledged to help restore the bat coronavirus grant and counter the narrative COVID-19 leaked from a lab. The Reuters account also tied the case to the broader dispute over origins, noting that the FBI said in 2023 that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory likely caused the pandemic, while the CIA said in January 2025 a lab leak was likely, but with "low confidence," and that four other U.S. intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council believe the virus most likely emerged via natural transmission from some animal.
“Fauci wasn’t charged in the case against Morens, 78, of Chester, Maryland.”
The Associated Press reported that Fauci declined a request to appear voluntarily before a second Senate panel after majority Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee voted along partisan lines to hold him in contempt of Congress. In the same AP report, it stated that Fauci wasn’t charged in the case against Morens, 78, of Chester, Maryland.