Background
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) restarted the suspended EcoHealth Alliance bat coronavirus grant on May 8, 2023, with revised conditions that barred any future collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. David Morens was heavily involved behind the scenes during the pandemic-era efforts to lobby for and protect the grant.
Grant Restoration DetailsDate Restored: May 8, 2023 (originally suspended in April 2020 by the Trump administration, partially terminated/lapsed later, and then formally reissued to study how coronaviruses spread from bats to people without Chinese lab sub-awards).S
ubsequent Status: This restored funding was short-lived relative to congressional pressure; by May 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suspended and moved to permanently debar EcoHealth Alliance entirely.
David Morens' InvolvementAdvocacy: Congressional investigations and subpoenaed emails revealed that Dr. David Morens—then a senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—actively worked behind the scenes to help EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Dr. Peter Daszak, get their funding restored and manage public relations.
FOIA Evasion: Morens coordinated with grantees using his personal Gmail account rather than his official government email to intentionally shield these discussions and lobbying efforts from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Legal Fallout: Morens' efforts to conceal these records and subvert transparency laws resulted in his federal indictment and subsequent guilty plea to conspiracy charges.
From media
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/08/19/david-morens-bat-virus-records/
David Morens, 78, faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to evade federal public record laws
David Morens secretly pledged to restore terminated grant for Wuhan lab work while countering lab-leak narrative
A senior US health official has pleaded guilty to hiding records showing he had secretly tried to restore funding for bat-virus experiments during the pandemic.
David Morens, 78, a former employee at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and an adviser to Dr Anthony Fauci, could face five years in jail for conspiracy to evade federal public record laws.
In 2020, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated a grant called Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, which had funnelled funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to carry out experiments on bat viruses.
Covid-19 emerged close to WIV, and US intelligence feared that the virus may have leaked from the lab during the grant research.
Morens admitted that despite the termination, he had pledged to help scientists have the grant restored, while also helping them to counter the narrative that Covid-19 had leaked from a lab.
Fearing that their communications would be requested through Freedom of Information Requests, Morens admitted to hiding the messages from public view by corresponding using his personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH email account, creating a “back-channel” of information.
Messages released in 2021 showed that Morens boasted that he could “make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d”.
A document released by the United States Attorney’s Office District of Maryland said Morens also received gratuities, such as wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans”.
The document added: “Co-Conspirator 1 suggested he would provide Morens with additional things of value, including meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington DC.”
At a recent Senate hearing, Dr Fauci was questioned about his relationship with Morens, but chose to exercise his Fifth Amendment right to avoid implicating himself.
From Politico
Daszak is not named in the court documents, which refer to him as “co-conspirator 1,” but records released through congressional investigations into Morens’ actions confirm Daszak’s identity.
Daszak did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Morens’ guilty plea.
The court documents also refer to a second, unnamed co-conspirator identified in records made public by lawmakers as Gerald Keusch, a physician and former associate director of Boston University’s infectious disease lab. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
While the court filings describe Daszak and Keusch as co-conspirators, they have not been charged with any crime.
According to the factual statement agreed to by Morens and prosecutors, Morens conspired with Keusch to help restore the grant for EcoHealth Alliance after the NIH terminated it in 2020 following allegations that Covid emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was researching coronaviruses through the grant.
Anticipating that their communications would be the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests, Morens, Daszak and Keusch agreed in writing to hide their exchanges by using Morens’ personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH email account, the court filing says.
The three exchanged non-public NIH information; talked about their efforts to influence NIH to fund EcoHealth Alliance again; exchanged edits to draft letters addressed to NIH leadership for EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak; and “back-channeled” information to a person identified as
“Senior NIAID Official 1,” according to the statement of facts. That person was Fauci, according to the records released through congressional investigations.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/18/anthony-fauci-david-morens-covid-ecohealth-01040979
Dr. Gerald "Garry" Keusch is an American physician-scientist and global health expert who directed the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center from 1998 to 2003. He has not received personal funding from Bill Gates, though large institutional grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported collaborative global health projects he led or co-authored during his career.
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