Former Fauci Adviser Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Records Charges

David Morens, a former senior adviser to Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded not guilty on Friday to five federal criminal counts in Maryland federal court. The 78-year-old entered the plea before Magistrate Judge Ajmel Ahsen Quereshi during an arraignment hearing attended by his defense attorneys.

Morens told a reporter "I'm innocent" while seated in the courthouse lobby ahead of the hearing and was observed solving a Sudoku puzzle. Prosecutors allege he worked with two unnamed co-conspirators to use a private Gmail account to discuss official business and evade Freedom of Information Act and Federal Records Act requirements.

The actions are said to have obstructed hundreds of FOIA requests from multiple organizations. Morens told the judge he had scanned the indictment. After the hearing he stared straight ahead and declined to comment when asked why Fauci had stated he knew nothing of the alleged use of a private email account.

He then drove away from the courthouse in a white BMW.

The indictment states that Morens and his co-conspirators concealed, removed or destroyed federal records to evade disclosure requirements. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an April 28 statement announcing the indictment that the scheme helped suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.

Emails cited in the indictment were previously surfaced through congressional investigations. The case also involves an alleged kickback scheme in which one co-conspirator provided wine bottles and promised meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Washington, DC, New York City and Paris.

In exchange, Morens is accused of approving multimillion-dollar grants. The co-conspirators are identified in the indictment as Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, and Gerald Keusch, an associate director at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory Institute.

Alliance received more than $11 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health between 2014 and 2020, according to prosecutors. A portion of those funds supported gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Keusch allegedly helped reinstate one of the grants after it was cancelled early in the pandemic and had been involved in its original approval in 2002. The three individuals opposed suggestions that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated from a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China.

They pushed for scientific papers supporting a natural spillover theory from animals to humans. Fauci, referred to in the indictment as "Senior NIAID Official 1," previously stated during a June 2024 congressional hearing that he knew nothing of Morens’ alleged private email use and was not his adviser.

Fauci is not named as a co-conspirator. Morens had written in an April 21, 2021 email that there was "no worry about FOIAs" because material could be sent to Fauci’s private Gmail account or handed to him directly. He also referenced receiving tips on how to make emails disappear after FOIA requests.

The Department of Health and Human Services has barred EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding until 2030. The judge set a deadline of May 29 for motions in the case. Both sides agreed that a jury trial, once scheduled, is expected to last about seven days.

Morens faces a maximum of 51 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts.