Former Fauci Adviser Pleads Guilty Over COVID Records

David Morens, a former senior adviser to infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to circumvent US public records laws and conceal government communications concerning research funding and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Morens entered his guilty plea on Tuesday during a hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland. The 78-year-old previously served as a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) while Fauci was director.

Federal prosecutors accused Morens of participating in a scheme to avoid public disclosure requirements after the agency began receiving Freedom of Information Act requests in April 2020 concerning COVID-19 research grants.

Morens was indicted in April. He now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for November 12.

His lawyer, Timothy Belevetz, said Morens had accepted responsibility for his actions.

"By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did, and he will continue to do so," Belevetz said in a statement.

The guilty plea comes shortly after Fauci appeared before a Senate panel last month, where he repeatedly invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

The case has drawn renewed attention to the continuing debate over the origins of COVID-19. The FBI said in 2023 that a laboratory leak in Wuhan was likely responsible for the pandemic, while China rejected that assessment. In January 2025, the CIA also concluded that a laboratory-related origin was likely, although it expressed low confidence in that judgment.

Four other US intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have instead assessed that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission from an animal.

Prosecutors said Morens' guilty plea relates in part to the cancellation of a research grant involving bat coronaviruses. The grant had been awarded to an organisation that provided a sub-award to a laboratory in China.

According to prosecutors, Morens agreed to help efforts to restore the grant while also challenging claims that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan.

Investigators allege that Morens and others anticipated their communications could eventually be sought through Freedom of Information Act requests. As a result, they agreed to use Morens' personal email account rather than his government account when discussing matters related to the research.

The case is likely to add further scrutiny to how US government officials handled records, research funding and communications during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.