When you are prosecuting a complicated case involving a conspiracy, you start with the little fish and work your way up the ladder.
It makes sense. The little fish are generally more vulnerable for a lot of reasons; the people on top tend to outsource the dirty work, and the little fish have fewer friends and resources to call upon when defending themselves.
Yet they were essential in carrying off whatever evil deeds were done, and they often resent that they were hung out to dry. Fauci, for instance, pretended to barely know David Morens, with whom he worked for decades.
Morens' title? Senior Advisor to the Director. Yet here is what Fauci told the Senate when asked about Morens' admission that he deleted information and conspired to avoid FOIA:
“With respect to his recent testimony before this subcommittee, I knew nothing of Dr. Morens’s actions regarding Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth, or his emails. It is important to point out for the record that despite his title, and even though he was helpful to me in writing scientific papers, Dr. Morens was not an advisor to me on [NIAID] policy, or other substantive issues.”
If I were Morens, I would be pissed and be willing to throw people like Fauci, Peter Daszak, and any of the big guys under the bus and run them over a few times.
Maybe more than a few.
And, it appears, that is exactly what he has done, signing a plea admitting his guilt and apparently naming names.
David Morens, who was senior advisor to Anthony Fauci, has pled guilty to conspiracy.
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) August 19, 2026
He signed this document, agreeing that if the case had proceeded to trial, it would've proven the following beyond reasonable doubt:
Morens and his co-conspirators 1 and 2 (including Peter…
David Morens, who was senior advisor to Anthony Fauci, has pled guilty to conspiracy.
He signed this document, agreeing that if the case had proceeded to trial, it would've proven the following beyond reasonable doubt:
Morens and his co-conspirators 1 and 2 (including Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance) and others
💠conspired to defraud and commit offenses against the United States by hiding from public view various federal records related to the pandemic
💠emailed information to Morens at his personal email to relay to Senior NIAID Official 1 (Anthony Fauci) while instructing Morens to use means of communication that would not be discovered in a FOIA search
💠plotted and repeatedly expressed their intention to conceal federal records and provided info to Senior NIAID Official 1 (Fauci) favorable to a co-conspirator's company (EcoHealth)
💠used Morens' personal email to exchange federal records concerning the drafting and sources relied upon for public writings on the origins of the Covid-19 virus
💠concealed their communications so they could generate the appearance of disinterested scientific consensus in support of a co-conspirator's company (EcoHealth)
💠shared information about Congressional inquiries and FOIA requests to anticipate press reactions, develop talking points and coordinate responses
Morens faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
There are a lot of things to say about this plea agreement, but I want to point out the first one that popped into my mind when I brushed up on Morens in anticipation of writing this piece: the man is 78 years old. Why was NIAID run by such old people? Is being a bureaucrat at the top of the pyramid similar to being a Senator or something? All that power gets to their heads, apparently, or perhaps Morens was intensely loyal to the octogenarian Dr. Fauci until Fauci threw him under the bus?
Or he just loved Daszak's wine.
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) August 19, 2026
Whatever the reason, Morens decided to stick it out in the bureaucracy, and now he is a felon with a hell of an incentive to dish the dirt on some of the most evil people in the world. He may just be the Mob accountant in the conspiracy, but the accountant has access, by necessity, to the books.
It's striking how easy it was to buy Morens; all it cost, apparently, was some buttering up of a bureaucrat who lived in the shadows of Fauci and a few hundred or thousands of dollars in wine and a promise of a good meal with a renowned scientist.
The plea comes as Dr. Fauci faces mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers over accusations that he sought to cover up knowledge that Covid had leaked from a lab in China.
Dr. Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, told a House panel in 2024 that Dr. Morens’s conduct was “wrong and inappropriate” and that he was not aware of government scientists trying to conceal official emails.
In pleading guilty at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., Dr. Morens admitted to working in concert with scientists outside the federal government to protect their federal funding for virus research amid allegations that the scientists had worked on dangerous experiments with collaborators in Wuhan, China, where the Covid pandemic began.
A statement of facts that Dr. Morens agreed to as part of a plea agreement said that he had moved discussions of those experiments onto a personal email account to protect them from being publicly released. He has said that he was trying to protect scientists from baseless charges connected to allegations of a lab leak.
Timothy Belevetz, a lawyer for Dr. Morens, said in a statement, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.” A federal judge set sentencing for November. Dr. Morens faces a maximum of five years in prison.
In emails from 2020 and 2021, released by a House panel, Dr. Morens described plans to evade federal records laws, including by learning how to “make emails disappear.”
In many of those emails, Dr. Morens was consulting with Peter Daszak, then the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a research nonprofit that lost N.I.H. funding over collaborations with a Chinese virology lab that the Trump administration has suggested conducted research that may have led to the pandemic.
In exchange for helping Dr. Daszak, Dr. Morens said that he had received illegal gratuities, including two bottles of wine and a promise of a future meal at a “Michelin starred” restaurant.
I think the real prize for Morens was feeling important, which seemed to drive so much horrible behavior during COVID. Power-drunk bureaucrats are easy prey for smarter, more devious people with real stakes in the outcomes. Smart people can make billions of dollars or get other enormous benefits by little more than stroking the egos of self-important but "underappreciated" people behind the scenes.
Dr Fauci under oath: I never deleted official records
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 19, 2026
Also Dr Fauci: “Please delete this email”
Fauci should be facing the same charges. https://t.co/nnMyBJU2hF pic.twitter.com/LtWytJ6vTb
It's like being a backup singer for a star. You naturally bask in the reflected glory and wonder why it is not yours. Or the also-rans in bands like the Talking Heads or 10,000 Maniacs, where David Byrne or Natalie Merchant outshine others who are nearly as important to the success of the enterprise.
Resentment always follows, and often disaster.
Morens, I suspect, is THAT GUY. And since he is now a convicted criminal, he can turn his justifiable resentment against the bigger fish.
I'm here for it.
