With Pam Bondi out (related?), the U.S. Department of Justiceannounced todaythatit has indicted Dr. David M. Morens,a longtime senior advisor to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases DirectorDr. Anthony Fauci.The 78-year-old Morens faces charges includingconspiracy against the United States, destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations, concealment, removal, or mutilation of records, and aiding and abetting.

According to the indictment, Morens allegedly used his personal Gmail accountto evade Freedom of Information Act requestsand worked with othersto conceal communicationsrelated to COVID-19 research grants during the pandemic.

Fauci advisor David Morens admits in an email that he "learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia'd but before the search starts"https://t.co/sn6hvwDF7Rpic.twitter.com/1MroXRWNQO

Morens served as Senior Scientific Advisor in NIAID’s Office of the Director from 2006 through 2022- advising senior leadership, including Fauci, on policy matters, infectious disease issues, and aspects of COVID-19 origins research. He also gathered information from grantees and the scientific community and helped prepare briefings for Fauci to use with the White House, Congress, and the public.

The indictment follows years of scrutiny by Congress. In June 2023, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic began obtaining emails showing that Morens had been using his personal Gmail account for official government business specifically to avoid FOIA disclosures. Over the following months the subcommittee issued document requests and subpoenas, conducted transcribed interviews with Morens in December 2023 and January 2024, and ultimately obtained tens of thousands of additional pages from his personal email account in late April 2024.

As Paul Thacker ofthe DisInformation Chroniclenoted in 2024,the subcommittee released a detailed staff memo and more than 150 pages of emails on May 22, 2024, documenting what it described as serious questions about potential wrongdoing and illegal activity by Morens. The emails includeddiscussions of deleting records and routing sensitive communications through personal accounts.

Sen. Ron Johnson had raised similar concerns even earlier. In November 2023 he wrote to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Inspector General Christi Grimm, stating that Morens’ actions may have directly obstructed congressional oversight efforts related to NIAID activities during the pandemic.

More than two years ago, my PSI staff discovered and made public emails in which Dr. David Morens bragged to colleagues about his efforts to avoid transparency by destroying federal records and using his personal email to communicate on “sensitive issues.”Today,@OIGatHHS…

Two emails in particular have drawn significant attention. In a February 24, 2021 message to Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance and Gerald Keusch, Morens wrote that he had learned from an NIH FOIA official “how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d but before the search starts, so I think we are all safe. Plus, I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail."

In an April 21, 2021 email to Daszak, Morens added: “PS, I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs.I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble." (“Tony" refers to Anthony Fauci.)

Source: ZeroHedge News