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Top Fauci Advisor David Morens Charged In COVID Records Cover-Up: DOJ
With Pam Bondi out (related?), the U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it has indicted Dr. David M. Morens, a longtime senior advisor to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. The 78-year-old Morens faces charges including conspiracy against the United States, destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations, concealment, removal, or mutilation of records, and aiding and abetting.
Dr. David Morens. Look at that criminal brow.According to the indictment, Morens allegedly used his personal Gmail account to evade Freedom of Information Act requests and worked with others to conceal communications related 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/sn6hvwDF7R pic.twitter.com/1MroXRWNQO
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 28, 2026Morens 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 Congressional InvestigationThe 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 of the DisInformation Chronicle noted 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 included discussions 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.)
These messages, along with others detailing coordination with EcoHealth Alliance after its NIH grant was terminated, formed a central part of the congressional record.
'Tie Your Shoe'On May 22, 2024, Morens appeared for a public hearing before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. He faced questions from both Republican and Democratic members about the emails, his relationship with Daszak, and his role in efforts to restore EcoHealth’s terminated grant and shape public messaging around COVID-19 origins.
During the hearing, Morens was confronted with evidence that he:
- Edited compliance letters and press releases for EcoHealth Alliance
- Wrote to the EcoHealth board on Daszak’s behalf when the latter feared being fired
- Used personal email to route information to Fauci while attempting to avoid FOIA
- Discussed methods for deleting or hiding emails after FOIA requests had been filed
As Paul Thacker writes:
Reading back to Morens passages from his own emails and prior congressional testimony, Chairman Brad Wenstrup forced Morens to confirm that he had conspired with EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak to restore Daszak’s NIH grant. Morens admitted that he edited a compliance letter Daszak sent to the NIH, edited an EcoHealth Alliance press release after NIH terminated Daszak’s grant, and “put in a word” to the EcoHealth Alliance board when Daszak was worried about being fired.
Ranking Member Raul Ruiz berated Morens at several points, saying his actions were a “stain on the legacy” of the NIH and his colleagues. After Wenstrup banged down his gavel to end the hearing, Morens remained seated and was approached by his lawyer, white collar crime attorney Timothy Belevetz.
Leaning into his client’s ear, Belevetz whispered, “Before you get up, tie your shoe.”
Today’s DOJ IndictmentThe indictment alleges that after NIH terminated EcoHealth Alliance’s grant Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence — which included a subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology — Morens and unnamed co-conspirators conspired to help restore the grant and counter the lab-leak narrative. The charges further claim that Morens used his personal Gmail account to hide these communications from public view and that he received illegal gratuities, including wine delivered to his home, in connection with official acts favorable to EcoHealth.
Maximum penalties if convicted:
- Conspiracy against the United States: up to 5 years in prison
- Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations: up to 20 years per count
- Concealment, removal, or mutilation of records: up to 3 years per count
An indictment is not a finding of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Timeline of Key Events- 2020–2021: Key emails written regarding FOIA avoidance, back-channel communications, and coordination with EcoHealth Alliance
- June 2023: House Select Subcommittee begins obtaining Morens’ personal emails
- October 2023: Morens subpoenaed for documents
- November 2023: Sen. Ron Johnson raises concerns with HHS leadership about potential obstruction of oversight
- December 2023 and January 2024: Morens gives transcribed interviews to the subcommittee
- April 2024: Additional subpoena issued; Morens produces roughly 30,000 pages of emails
- May 22, 2024: Public hearing held and staff memo plus 155 pages of emails released
- June 3, 2024: Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before the subcommittee
- April 28, 2026: Department of Justice indicts David Morens
In 2014, the Obama administration imposed a pause on federal funding for certain gain-of-function research on pathogens such as influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses, citing serious biosafety concerns following several laboratory incidents. The moratorium was lifted in 2017, but by then much of the work had effectively moved overseas. EcoHealth Alliance, led by Peter Daszak, continued receiving millions in NIH grants for bat coronavirus research - with a significant portion funneled through subawards to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China.
Related:
- CIA Met With Ralph Baric In 2015 To Discuss "Coronavirus Evolution And Possible Human Adaptation": Emails
- Is This The Man Who Created COVID-19 In Fauci's US Lab?
At the same time, University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric - one of the world’s leading experts on coronaviruses - had been collaborating closely with WIV scientists, including Shi Zhengli, in work described in a 2018 DEFUSE funding proposal (that was rejected by DARPA) to create an aerosolized bat covid that could infect humans. Baric’s lab created “humanized mice” expressing the human ACE2 receptor and engineered chimeric viruses to study how bat coronaviruses could jump to humans. Much of this high-risk work, which had previously been conducted on U.S. soil, was effectively transferred to the WIV - located in the very city where COVID-19 first emerged.
Details of the DEFUSE project were first leaked by Major Joseph Murphy, an employee of US military research agency DARPA, in the summer of 2021 and further details of earlier drafts have come to light this month thanks to public record requests from U.S. Right to Know (USRTK).
In DEFUSE, Baric proposed to create a virus that was, to most intents and purposes, SARS-CoV-2. The proposal included inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus spike protein, an order for the restrictive enzyme BsmBI, the search for a binding domain that would infect ACE2 human receptors and a requirement for a viral genome around 25% different to SARS.
One down (until Boasberg knights him), many to go.
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A Nation Divided: The Chilling Embrace Of Political Violence In The US
We are seeing increasing support for violent action across social media, including those lamenting that the recent presidential assassination was not successful. Conservative sites have been featuring teachers and others who were upset that the recent effort failed, including one who has now lost her job. The current violence and violent rhetoric have been building for years as our leaders fuel the rage in the nation.
One poll by the University of Virginia Center for Politics found that 52 percent of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life, while 47 percent of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats. Among Biden supporters, 41 percent believed violence is justified “to stop [Republicans] from achieving their goals.” An almost identical percentage, 38 percent, of Trump supporters embraced violence to stop Democrats.
The support for violence has been growing. One prior poll shows a quarter of Americans supporting political violence.
An earlier survey from the Baker Center at Georgetown University also captured the growing divide among Americans on this 250th anniversary year of our revolution. The public’s distrust of the media, democracy, and each other appears to be growing as one out of seven Americans now embraces political violence.
That survey also showed the continuing drop in support for the media. As the mainstream media continues to show the same bias and advocacy journalism that has been alienating many citizens, roughly half (49%) of the public has little or no confidence in the press. Roughly the same percentage believes that the press favors the Democrats in its coverage. The percentage with great confidence in the media is now just 18%.
One of the most chilling aspects of the survey is the drop in faith in each other and in democracy. A shocking 57% believe that members of the opposite party are a somewhat or very serious “threat to the U.S. and its people.” Only 69% say that democracy is “preferable to any other kind of government.”
The drop in support of democracy is particularly concerning with almost 10% of the public saying that political violence is “sometimes” warranted and 5% say that individual acts of political violence are “often” or “very often” justified.
With the third attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, the survey suggests and a sizable number of Americans may share the views of Cole Allen that even murder is now a legitimate, even righteous, response to political opponents.
The New York Times recently ran a podcast in which radical Hasan Piker, the New York Times Opinion Culture Editor Nadja Spiegelman, and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino captured the moral relativism that has taken hold of the left in American society. They cheerfully described the rationale for everything from “microlooting” to murder.
In response to the latest assassination attempt, Hakeem Jeffries declared, “I don’t give a damn” about criticism over his reckless rhetoric. That is hardly surprising for a politician whose favorite political prop appears to be a baseball bat, but it shows how politicians hope to ride this rage wave back into power. For Jeffries, rage may be the ticket to becoming the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The sad fact is that violent rhetoric works in an age of rage. Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger called upon her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you.” She then refused to withdraw her support for the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, Jay Jones, who once expressed his desire to kill his political opponents and his children.
It is the combination of this rising moral relativism with the failing faith in our system that represents an existential threat to our Republic. We will be facing unprecedented economic and social challenges in this decade. We have a system that is designed for such changes.
In my book, Rage and the Republic” I discuss what I view as a crisis of faith in our values and ourselves.
When Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur asked, “What then is the new American, this new man?” he was a Frenchman. Later, the author, cartographer, farmer, and diplomat would adopt a new name as John Hector St. John as well as a new identity: an American farmer. ,,, What was so striking about Letters from an American Farmer was the fourth word: American. At a time when most people still identified with their states as Georgians or Virginians, Crèvecoeur wrote as one of a new people known as Americans…
The greatest challenge of this century may be a rediscovery of that essential character that seemed so clear to these early writers when they first came upon our shores. Call it a crisis of faith or a confusion of the times, but many seem unsure whether we represent something beyond the totality of our wealth or power. We were much more than that when we first assumed the moniker of Americans. The question, is what we are now? Or, perhaps more pointedly, what do we aspire to be in this new century?
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 11:40Why Sam Altman and his former hero Elon Musk are taking their toxic feud to court
BOJ Keeps Rates On Hold In Rare 6-3 Vote Split As It Warns Of Looming Stagflation
In the first G5 central bank announcement of the week, overnight the Bank of Japan held its benchmark interest rate in a 6-3 vote, despite forecasting a sharp rise in inflation as the war in the Middle East sends commodity prices higher and clouds the global economic outlook while testing Japan's given its exposure to rising energy prices.
While the decision on Tuesday to keep rates at about 0.75% was in line with market expectations, it came via a rare six-to-three vote split of the Monetary Policy Committee, the biggest divergence of opinion under governor Kazuo Ueda, and since the launch of the bank’s negative interest rate policy in 2016.
The three dissenters called for an immediate rate increase to 1%, reflecting fears that the BoJ is at risk of falling even further behind the curve by postponing rate increases as it seeks to “normalise” monetary policy at a time when Japan's inflation is dangerously overheating due to sharp wage increases in recent years.
After the BOJ announcement, traders were convinced that rates will rise after the next meeting in June.
Speaking at a press conference later on Tuesday that was widely interpreted as hawkish, Ueda said the central bank would make appropriate decisions “so that we do not fall behind the curve”, yet even now he refused to outline a formal timeframe for the BoJ to decide whether conditions were right to raise rates.
“Given the high level of uncertainty around the conflict in the Middle East, the likelihood of achieving our forecasts has declined,” said Ueda.
He added that the central bank “wants to spend a little more time scrutinizing how the Middle East conflict affects the economy and prices, and whether the risk to growth and inflation could change”.
While two of the three dissenters, Naoki Tamura and Hajime Takata, are known hawks who have voted against the governor at previous meetings, analysts noted the addition of the more dovish Junko Nakagawa.
“Three dissenting votes is not a huge surprise, but Nakagawa being one of them is,” said JPMorgan senior Japan economist Benjamin Shatil. “The Board is sending a clear signal that it is ready for a June rate hike. Whether global conditions have settled sufficiently and tacit government approval is in place by then is another question.”
In the BoJ’s stagflationary outlook statement, the bank warned that Japan’s economic growth was likely to slow in the current fiscal year; at the same time it also significantly raised its inflation forecast over the same period.
The committee said core CPI was expected to reach 2.8% for the current fiscal year ending in March 2027, up sharply from its previous forecast of 1.9% issued just three months ago.
“The rise in crude oil prices reflecting the impact of the situation in the Middle East is expected to push down corporate profits and households’ real income,” the BoJ said.
The statement added that the risks to economic activity were “skewed to the downside and risks to prices are skewed to the upside”. In other words, a classical staglationary setup.
Japan is particularly vulnerable to energy shocks from the crisis in the Gulf. The country is heavily reliant on imported energy, and sources more than 90% of its crude from the Middle East.
The BoJ was the first of five major central banks making rate decisions this week, with the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and Bank of Canada all expected to follow its lead and keep rates on hold as they asses the war-related risk of prolonged inflation.
Marcel Thieliant, head of Asia-Pacific at Capital Economics, underlined the BoJ’s upward revision of inflation forecasts, including that inflation will average 2.2% in fiscal 2028.
“Barring a renewed escalation in the Middle East, the bank will probably lift its policy rate again at its next meeting in June,” he wrote in a note to clients.
Goldman's Akira Otani said that July is still his base-case scenario for the next rate hike. "However, uncertainty over the timing of the rate hike is high. While it could come earlier than July depending on inflationary pressures, we would expect it to be pushed back from July to H2 if the Japanese economy were to fall into a recession through factors like a deterioration in the terms of trade."
"Even if tensions in the Middle East were to stabilize, we believe a July rate hike is more likely than a June one. Uncertainty over crude oil production and transportation in the Middle East will remain high for the time being and the impact remains uncertain even in a de-escalation scenario. Under such circumstances, and with no signs of groundwork being laid with the government for a rate hike, data and information showing the Japanese economy is unlikely to suffer a significant negative impact and is likely to achieve moderate growth will become more important, in our view. Therefore, while the possibility of a June rate hike cannot be ruled out, we see no need to change our base-case scenario of a July rate hike."
The BoJ’s hawkish statement pushed the yen higher against the US dollar, before the Japanese currency weakened back to around ¥159.62, and was lower on the day. The widely watched Nikkei 225 Average, which surged to an all-time high of 60,537 points on Monday, shed 1%, while the Topix, which has a heavier weighting of banks and financial companies, was up 1%.
Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 11:25US Energy Chief Says Hormuz Can Reopen Without Clearing All Mines, Warns Iran Shut-ins Could Be Devastating
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that not all mines placed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz need to removed for ships to resume transiting the vital passageway: “You just need a pathway for ships to be moved in and out,” Wright said in an interview on the sidelines of the Three Seas Summit and Business Forum in Dubrovnik. “I think that can happen quickly” he added suggesting that a restart can happen far sooner than the full demining timeline. Fully clearing the strait of mines could take six months, a Pentagon official said during a classified Congressional briefing last week, the Washington Post reported.
Iran has said it laid mines along the most frequently used routes of the narrow waterway, which has been effectively closed since February 28, and through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited before the US and Israel launched a war on the Islamic Republic.
Understandably, shipping companies have been highly reluctant to attempt to navigate Hormuz, fearing seizure, mines, and a lack of other safety guarantees.
The longer the Strait of Hormuz is shut the longer a historic energy disruption will continue. In the US, a surge in pump prices comes months before President Donald Trump’s Republican party faces midterm elections.
Wright also said the US plans to announce “historic” pipeline agreements that will lead to increases in the amount of US oil and natural gas Europe imports as part of the Trump “Peace Pipeline Agenda.”
Last but not least, the US energy secretary repeated verbatim what we said over the weekend, when we pointed out that a prolonged shut in would be devastating to Iran's oil reservoirs as over half of them are low pressure "putting them at risk for permanent loss after shut-ins, via near-wellbore water emulsions, clay swelling, and water blockages."
Most Gulf reservoirs have medium pressure, but over half of Iran's have very low pressure, putting them at risk for permanent loss after shut-ins, via near-wellbore water emulsions, clay swelling, and water blockages(chart Rystad/Goldman). https://t.co/I1duGf7s1R pic.twitter.com/9kIoKzDT6g
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 25, 2026Fast forward to this morning, when Wright told Bloomberg TV that "Iran does not have a lot of oil storage capacity and its old reservoirs are not suitable if the country decides to shut down production." That's because “they’ve got old reservoirs that are low pressure, which means it’s much more destructive if they have to shut in their production."
With Iran having about 10-15 days before hitting tank tops (depending on how many tankers they use for storage), we'll find out in a few weeks if he is right.
Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 11:05
Carol Burnett dresses up to celebrate 93rd birthday at Montecito hotspot
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I tried the sculpting facial Anne Hathaway swears by for an instant facelift
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Collateral Damage
By Molly Schwartz, Cross-ASset Macro Strategist at Rabobank
Negotiations between the US and Iran are going nowhere. In fact, they’re not really even happening at all. Over the weekend, Axios reported that Iran gave the US a proposal to reopen the Strait — not to end the war. The proposal includes extending the ceasefire and an assertion that any conversations about Iran’s nuclear program are off the table until the Strait is open and the US blockade is lifted. The US has not indicated whether it will accept or reject the proposal at the time of writing.
Assuming the US does agree to extend its indefinite ceasefire, a flimsy ceasefire extension, even if agreed to by both parties, holds little water. Remember, keeping the Strait open was a condition of the current ceasefire as agreed to on April 8, and we can all see how well that held up. Just take a look at the prices at the pump.
While conversations between the US and Iran stall, Iran is making friends elsewhere. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi met with Putin yesterday, as Bloomberg reported that Araghchi told Putin he is “committed to strengthening the country’s partnership with Russia” and that “the Iranian people are able to ‘resist US aggression and will be able to overcome it.’”
As Iran and Russia are making nice, the US and Germany are not. During a visit to a school in western Germany, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the Trump Administration was being “humiliated” by Iran: “The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either. A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.” Trump has not commented on Merz’ claims at the time of writing.
The longer the Strait remains closed, the longer the European economy, and energy complex, is squeezed. Germany has rejected Trump’s calls to join the war under NATO, despite German leaders softly echoing support of US military efforts. Europe has drafted a plan to re-open the Strait after the war has ended, that is not enough to appease Trump, who has made his demands for NATO participation in the Iran war clear. But the question remains just how much collateral damage Europe is willing to be subject to in the pursuit of keeping its hands clean.
Europe’s reliance on energy from the Middle East and direct flows through the Strait of Hormuz suggest that they are in for more pain than the US under a prolonged closure. At the same time, they don’t have a fanatic obduracy to tolerate it like the Iran (or rather, the IRGC at the expense of the Iranian people). If negotiations fail to result in a somewhat peaceful re-opening of the Strait and conclusion of the US naval blockade, Europe may have no choice but to get involved.
It’s probable that the Trump Administration is aware of this. Trump has lambasted European leaders for refusing to support the US and in some cases, outright refusing to cooperate. If the US keeps the Strait closed and inflicts enough second-hand damage on Europe, Trump may be able to achieve the NATO military “cooperation” he has been asking for.
Crude oil futures have continued to grind higher, trading up to highs of $109/bbl yesterday. Futures prices have started to converge with the physical market, which is currently pricing crude at $113/bbl, narrowing the spread from highs of $35.9 earlier this month to only $4, which would be more consistent with levels seen pre-war.
Meanwhile, the Fed drama saga continues. The path to Warsh’s confirmation as Fed chair seems to have cleared as the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped its criminal probe into Powell with regard to the Federal Reserve’s renovation budget. However, whether Powell will stay on the Board is not yet certain. While Powell’s term as Chair ends in May, he is allowed to stay on the Board of Governors until January 2028.
Despite it being a highly popular question from reporters during the Fed decision press conference, Powell had been tight lipped about his plans for a while, until confirming more recently that he would stay on the Board until the DOJ investigation levied against him was concluded.
However, while the DOJ has dismissed the case, that doesn’t mean that Powell’s troubles are over. Rather, this means that the case has now landed on the desk of the Fed’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), though according to the Fed’s own article about the renovation, the OIG has had full access to all financial records and information throughout the duration of the project.
Given the dropped charges against Powell, that has opened up Senator Thom Tillis to vote to officially confirm Warsh as Fed Chair. Whether or not the Fed meeting tomorrow will be Powell’s last is still TBD. Read more from our Fed whisperer, Philip Marey, here.
A little farther north, Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced the creation of a Canadian sovereign wealth fund, called the “Canada Strong Fund.” The fund is designed to further lower barriers to business and investment in Canada—something the Carney has spoken about extensively as a part of his mission—by “investing in strategic Canadian projects and companies.”
A more financially-savvy Canadian government does not come without drawbacks. Carney has recently come under scrutiny by some after his ethics disclosure, which has led some to question the dissonance in Carney’s insistence that Canada needs to diversify away from the US, while he himself is heavily invested there.
Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 10:15