Peter Daszak, who as president of EcoHealth Alliance directed government funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, thanked a former Fauci aide in newly-released emails for helping shut down public speculation over the possibility that Covid-19 emerged from a lab.

David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hiding federal records from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Investigators obtained emails between Daszak and Morens in which Daszak mentioned sending bottles of wine to Morens and thanked him for his “behind the scenes shenanigans.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said that Morens and his co-conspirators had pledged to help “counter the narrative that Covid-19 leaked from a lab”.

EcoHealth, a New York-based non-governmental organization, was awarded millions of dollars in grants from the NIH, including funds that were subgranted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to study bat coronaviruses. The lab-leak theory of Covid’s origins, which Dr. Anthony Fauci and other federal officials tried to publicly dismiss, suggests the virus emerged from the Wuhan institute.

Morens, in messages on his private Gmail account, promised to help Daszak win back grant funding for his bat coronavirus experiments in China. The experiments were suspended in April 2020 in response to fears that the controversial research could have caused the pandemic.

Emails show Morens agreeing to write a “scientific commentary” in June 2020 underlining the importance of Daszak’s work, though he said he would keep the EcoHealth Alliance president’s name out of the article to mislead readers into believing it was independent. Prosecutors say Morens and Daszak had “concealed their communications” so they could publish papers and articles without directly mentioning Daszak, “to generate the appearance of disinterested scientific consensus.”

Morens told Daszak that he was working “behind the scenes” to help him.

“My boxing gloves are on and laced up,” he said in one message.

In another, he added: “Let’s win this anti-science battle, get you refunded… then settle the scores and kick some ass.”

In response, Daszak apparently sent two bottles of The Prisoner Red Napa Valley wine to Morens in the weeks that followed, alongside a note that said, “This is the first of what I hope will be a continued series of expressions of gratitude for your advice, support and behind the scenes shenanigans in my battle against your bosses boss, his boss and the ultimate boss on the hill (referring to Donald Trump).”

Morens later published an article, “The Origin of Covid-19 and why it matters,” arguing that Covid-19 was born out of “natural” spillover from animals. He suggested Daszak’s research is actually important to preventing another pandemic.

The federal government formally debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak last year, prohibiting them from receiving taxpayer funding for five years after a months long investigation found taxpayer money had been used to fund the group’s gain-of-function research.

Throughout several of the emails, Morens laments the possibility of FOIA requests revealing his private communications, and brags about his ability to obscure his communications.

In June 2020, he said FOIA requests were “dreadful and paranoia inducing.”

We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails, and if we found them we’d delete them,” he added.

He said that he could “make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d.”

He agreed to a deal with federal prosecutors this week that would see him plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses or to defraud the United States. The charge carries up to five years in prison.

Morens’s attorney, Tim Belevetz, told several media outlets, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.”