The plea deal agreed to by former top Dr. Anthony Fauci adviser David Morens, filed in federal court this week, provides a roadmap for further conspiracy charges in the scheme to conceal communications about coronavirus research grants from Freedom of Information Act requests, a review of the court documents shows.
Morens, who served as a senior adviser to Fauci at the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 16 years, pleaded guilty earlier this week to the conspiracy, admitting to working with two co-conspirators to conceal agency records from public view.
The records dealt with a National Institutes of Health grant to “Company #1,” an entity that sponsored coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory in China. Just months after the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the United States, the NIH canceled the bat coronavirus grant to the company as it reviewed allegations that the laboratory may have been the source of the virus in a lab leak after President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged his awareness of the grant in late April 2020.
Though not identified by name by prosecutors, Company #1 is EcoHealth Alliance, the former New York-based nonprofit headed by Peter Daszak that Fauci’s agency used as a pass-through to fund controversial gain-of-function research at the Chinese facility. At the time, as questions swirled about the origins of the virus then spreading across the globe, federal health officials were assessing their agencies’ exposure to that research in China. EcoHealth and Daszak, which awarded sub-grants to the facility in Wuhan, were at the center of that scrutiny.
While the focus has been on Morens after his guilty plea earlier this week, the plea agreement provides significant detail about the overall conspiracy and identifies Daszak – by implication and not by name – as “Co-Conspirator 1” in the scheme to avoid FOIA requests, raising the possibility that the British zoologist could face his own legal jeopardy for his alleged involvement.
The agreement, which was signed by Morens, lays out in detail how he, Daszak and another conspirator worked to conceal records related to EcoHealth’s coronavirus research grant and used Morens’ status as a senior adviser to advance the interests of EcoHealth within the NIH.
“On or about April 25, 2020, after learning about the cancellation of the bat coronavirus grant from Co-Conspirator 1, MORENS forwarded his communications with Co-Conspirator 1 and Co-Conspirator 2 from his NIH email account to his Gmail account,” according to the Stipulation of Facts appended to Morens’ plea deal.
You can read the plea agreement and the addendum laying out the facts of the case below:
gov.uscourts.mdd_.603873.36.0.pdf
gov.uscourts.mdd_.603873.36.1.pdf
“MORENS then emailed Co-Conspirator 1 and Co-Conspirator 2, stating, ‘This is sent from my gmail account. Please send all replies here To gmail […] There are things I cant say except [Senior NIAID Official 1] is aware and I have learned that there are ongoing efforts within NIH to steer through this with minimal damage to you, [Co-Conspirator 1], and colleagues, and to nih and niaid,’” the document also states, outlining Morens’ effort to initiate the conspiracy to conceal federal records.
Hellbound and Down 