The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that a longtime senior advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci has been indicted for allegedly using a personal email to hide communications related to research grants that sought the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

David Morens, who served as a senior advisor in NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 through 2022, has been charged with conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting, per the Department of Justice. 

The DOJ wrote that the National Institute of Health terminated the grant titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” also called the “bat coronavirus grant,” based on “allegations that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China.”

The NIAID awarded the grant to Company #1 and Co-Conspirator 1, which made a subaward to the Wuhan lab, the DOJ said. Morens and Co-Conspirator 2, following the termination, “pledged to help Co-Conspirator 1 restore the termination of the bat coronavirus grant and counter the narrative that COVID-19 leaked from a lab.” 

“In anticipation that their communications would be requested through a FOIA Request, Morens, Co-Conspirator 1, and Co-Conspirator 2 agreed in writing to intentionally hide from public view their communications by corresponding using Morens’s personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH email account.”

This is a breaking story.