Fauci’s former adviser pleads guilty in COVID records scheme — and Rand Paul has one big question

BS BULLETIN

Former NIAID senior adviser David Morens has pleaded guilty to conspiring to evade federal transparency laws involving COVID-era research records.
Prosecutors say Morens and others deliberately moved government business to his personal Gmail account to keep communications away from FOIA requests.
Morens faces up to five years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for November 12.

The COVID accountability story just took a rather significant turn — from congressional hearings and suspicious emails to an actual guilty plea in federal court.

David Morens, the longtime National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases official who worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Greenbelt, Maryland, to conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States in connection with efforts to conceal government communications about coronavirus research grants.

And unlike so much of what Washington has served up concerning COVID accountability, this is no longer an allegation. It is a guilty plea.

According to the Justice Department, Morens admitted participating in a scheme to evade both the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act while serving as a senior adviser in NIAID’s Office of the Director. He held that senior position from 2006 through 2022.

The heart of the case involves the controversial NIH-funded bat coronavirus research grant connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. After NIH terminated the grant, prosecutors say Morens and others worked to help restore it while simultaneously attempting to counter the theory that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory.

There was just one problem. They apparently anticipated that people might eventually want to see what they were saying to one another. So, according to Morens’ guilty plea, the group agreed to move communications away from government systems and onto Morens’ personal Gmail account specifically to keep those conversations from public view and potential FOIA requests.

The personal account was no casual side channel. The Justice Department says it was used to exchange non-public NIH information, discuss efforts to influence NIH funding decisions, edit correspondence intended for NIH leadership and “back-channel” information to a senior NIAID official. Those communications constituted federal records that were supposed to be preserved on government systems.

Remember some of the emails congressional investigators unearthed before prosecutors ever arrived?

Morens wrote that he had learned from the agency’s FOIA staff how to make emails disappear after receiving a request but before the records search began.

And another now-infamous message concerning Fauci was even more eyebrow-raising: Morens wrote that Fauci was “too smart” to allow colleagues to send him potentially troublesome material. That certainly sounds different today than it did when Washington’s defenders were dismissing congressional investigators as conspiracy hunters.

Then there is the wine. Because apparently no Washington scandal is complete without a little something from the cellar.

The Justice Department says Morens also admitted conspiring with another person concerning illegal gratuities. Prosecutors say Morens received wine for what was described as his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” The government says Morens then identified an official act he could perform to “deserve” the gift: writing scientific commentary advocating for the natural-origin theory of COVID-19.

There were also discussions of future meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York and Washington. Nothing says dispassionate scientific inquiry quite like “behind-the-scenes shenanigans” and Michelin reservations.

The guilty plea also dramatically changes the legal situation for Morens. When he was indicted in April, prosecutors had charged him with conspiracy along with destruction, alteration or falsification of records and concealment-related offenses. At the time, the Justice Department alleged that Morens and his co-conspirators were trying to suppress competing theories about COVID’s origins.

Now Morens has admitted to the conspiracy charge. His attorney, Timothy Belevetz, told Reuters that Morens had “taken responsibility for what he did” and would continue doing so. Morens faces a maximum five-year prison sentence, and Reuters reports that sentencing is scheduled for November 12.

Which brings us inevitably to Dr. Fauci. Fauci has not been charged in Morens’ case, and the guilty plea does not establish that Fauci participated in the conspiracy. But the political and investigative context surrounding the plea is impossible to ignore.

Fauci previously sought to distance himself from Morens and said he knew nothing about Morens’ activities involving EcoHealth Alliance or his emails. More recently, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a Senate appearance as Sen. Rand Paul continued pressing him over the government’s COVID-era activities.

And Paul immediately spotted the question hanging over Tuesday’s development. “Could his plea involve implicating Anthony Fauci?” Paul asked.

That’s the question investigators — and millions of Americans who spent years being told that merely questioning the government’s COVID narrative was irresponsible — will now want answered.

People inside the federal public-health bureaucracy really were attempting to keep COVID-related government communications away from the public.

That isn’t a theory anymore. One of them just pleaded guilty.

MY QUICK TAKE

Well, well, well.

Remember when asking questions about COVID origins, NIH funding and what the federal health bureaucracy was doing behind closed doors could get you treated like Cousin Eddie had wandered into a medical conference wearing a tinfoil hat?

Funny how things change when somebody enters a guilty plea.

David Morens didn’t plead guilty to having an untidy inbox. He admitted participating in a conspiracy involving government records and communications that were deliberately moved away from government systems.

And then there’s that glorious phrase: “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.”

Folks, if somebody in Washington ever sends you wine as a thank-you for your “behind-the-scenes shenanigans,” you might want to decline the bottle. Apparently the bouquet contains subtle notes of subpoena, with a lingering federal-prison finish.

Now Rand Paul is asking the obvious question: Does Morens have anything to say about Fauci?

We don’t know.

But I’ll bet Washington suddenly has a whole lot more interest in David Morens’ upcoming conversations than it ever had in his Gmail account.

Funny thing about deleted emails. Sometimes the story survives the delete button.

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