Trump administration indicts former NIH official over COVID records

The Trump administration has indicted a former National Institutes of Health official over allegations of evading federal records requests related to COVID-19 pandemic research grants and the use of personal email for government business.



A grand jury in Maryland charged David Morens, a senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) during the pandemic, with conspiring to evade records requests received by the agency between April 2020 and December 2022.



The indictment, filed under seal April 16 and unsealed on Monday, also names two alleged co-conspirators - a New York-based nonprofit organization focused on infectious diseases and a physician at an academic institution that received NIH grants.