BENJAMIN MUELLER2026年8月20日今年5月，前国立卫生研究院官员戴维·莫伦斯在马里兰州格林贝尔特联邦地区法院出庭后离开。 Annabelle Gordon/ReutersDr. David Morens, a former adviser to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci at the National Institutes of Health, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to hide federal records related to the origins of the coronavirus outbreak in China.曾在国立卫生研究院任安东尼·福奇博士顾问的戴维·莫伦斯博士于周二认罪，承认合谋隐瞒与中国新冠病毒疫情起源有关的联邦记录。The plea comes as Dr. Fauci faces mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers over accusations that he sought to cover up knowledge that Covid had leaked from a lab in China.莫伦斯认罪之际，福奇正日益面临共和党议员的压力，他们指控他试图掩盖新冠病毒从中国实验室泄漏的证据。Dr. Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, told a House panel in 2024 that Dr. Morens’s conduct was “wrong and inappropriate” and that he was not aware of government scientists trying to conceal official emails.长期担任国家过敏与传染病研究所所长的福奇在2024年向一个众议院小组作证时表示，莫伦斯的行为“错误且不当”，并称他不知道有政府科学家试图隐瞒官方电子邮件。In pleading guilty at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., Dr. Morens admitted to working in concert with scientists outside the federal government to protect their federal funding for virus research amid allegations that the scientists had worked on dangerous experiments with collaborators in Wuhan, China, where the Covid pandemic began.在马里兰州格林贝尔特联邦地区法院认罪的莫伦斯承认，随着一些联邦政府系统外的科学家面临与新冠疫情发源地武汉的合作者进行危险实验的指控，他与这些科学家串通，以保护他们用于病毒研究的联邦资金。A statement of facts that Dr. Morens agreed to as part of a plea agreement said that he had moved discussions of those experiments onto a personal email account to protect them from being publicly released. He has said that he was trying to protect scientists from baseless charges connected to allegations of a lab leak.莫伦斯的事实陈述书显示，他曾将这些实验的讨论转移到个人电子邮件账户中，以防止其被公开披露。他称自己是在努力保护科学家免受与实验室泄漏指控相关的毫无根据的指责。这份陈述书是其认罪协议的一部分。Timothy Belevetz, a lawyer for Dr. Morens, said in a statement, “By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so.” A federal judge set sentencing for November. Dr. Morens faces a maximum of five years in prison.莫伦斯的律师蒂莫西·贝莱韦茨在一份声明中表示：“莫伦斯博士今天通过认罪，已为自己的行为承担责任，并将继续这样做。”联邦法官定于11月宣判。莫伦斯面临最高五年监禁。In emails from 2020 and 2021, released by a House panel, Dr. Morens described plans to evade federal records laws, including by learning how to “make emails disappear.”在众议院小组公布的2020年和2021年电子邮件中，莫伦斯描述了规避联邦记录法的计划，包括学习如何“让电子邮件消失”。In many of those emails, Dr. Morens was consulting with Peter Daszak, then the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a research nonprofit that lost N.I.H. funding over collaborations with a Chinese virology lab that the Trump administration has suggested conducted research that may have led to the pandemic.在这些邮件中，莫伦斯多次与时任生态健康联盟总裁彼得·达扎克协商。该研究型非营利组织因与一家中国病毒学实验室合作而失去了国立卫生研究院的资助——特朗普政府曾暗示该实验室进行的研究可能导致了此次大流行。In exchange for helping Dr. Daszak, Dr. Morens said that he had received illegal gratuities, including two bottles of wine and a promise of a future meal at a “Michelin starred” restaurant.莫伦斯表示，作为帮助达扎克的交换，他收受了非法馈赠，包括两瓶葡萄酒以及在“米其林星级”餐厅用餐的承诺。Dr. Morens admitted to working with Dr. Daszak and another scientist to prepare information to relay to Dr. Fauci, who is referred to in the statement of facts as an unnamed NIAID official. The statement does not accuse Dr. Fauci of wrongdoing.莫伦斯承认曾与达扎克及另一位科学家合作准备转达给福奇的信息，在事实陈述书中，福奇被称为一名未具名的过敏与传染病研究所官员。该陈述并未指控福奇有不当行为。In congressional testimony in 2024, Dr. Fauci told lawmakers that he was not aware of government scientists who worked for him doing official work on personal email accounts or inappropriately assisting recipients of federal funding.在2024年的国会作证中，福奇告诉议员，他不知道为他工作的政府科学家在通过个人电子邮件账户处理公务，或不当协助联邦资金的接受者。“What you saw, I believe, with Dr. Morens was an aberrancy and an outlier,” Dr. Fauci said at the time.福奇当时表示：“我认为，莫伦斯的情况属于异常和特例。”Dr. Fauci refused to answer questions last month before a Senate panel, which later voted along party lines to hold him in contempt of Congress. He received a pre-emptive pardon from President Joseph R. Biden Jr., which covered his official conduct from 2014 to 2025.福奇上月拒绝在一个参议院小组面前回答问题，该小组随后以按党派分野的表决结果认定他藐视国会。他获得了拜登总统的预先特赦，该赦免涵盖其2014年至2025年的公务行为。Dr. Morens’s guilty plea followed a yearslong effort by Republican lawmakers to link Dr. Morens, Dr. Fauci and the country’s premier medical research agency to the beginnings of the coronavirus pandemic.在莫伦斯此次认罪之前，共和党议员多年来一直试图将莫伦斯、福奇及美国顶级医学研究机构与新冠病毒大流行的开端联系起来。The investigation of Dr. Morens has so far produced no direct evidence that scientists or health officials were involved in research that started or spread the coronavirus outbreak.对莫伦斯的调查至今未产生直接证据，证明科学家或卫生官员参与了引发或传播新冠病毒疫情的研究。The question of the coronavirus’s origins has divided American intelligence bodies. The F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Energy Department have favored the idea that a lab leak may have caused the pandemic. Five other intelligence bodies have considered it more likely that the coronavirus had a nonlaboratory origin, meaning that it spread among animals in nature, and then jumped to people at a wild animal market or another location.关于新冠病毒起源的问题在美国情报机构中存在分歧。联邦调查局、中央情报局和能源部倾向于认为实验室泄漏可能引发了大流行。另外五个情报机构则认为，新冠病毒更可能起源于非实验室环境，即在自然界中出现动物间传播，随后在野生动物市场或其他地点传染给人类。In recent years, some scientific papers have looked at where early Covid patients lived and worked, as well as at genetic clues from an illegal wild-animal market in Wuhan. They found that those details pointed to the virus having spilled from animals into people at the Wuhan market.近年来，一些科学论文考察了早期新冠患者的居住和工作地点，以及武汉一个非法野生动物市场的基因线索。他们发现，这些细节指向病毒在武汉市场从动物传播给人类。Benjamin Mueller报道健康和医药新闻。他此前曾在伦敦任驻英国记者，还曾在纽约报道警务新闻。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。