Ex-ABC News correspondent claims network overhauled his COVID lab leak report after sending copy to Fauci

Ex-ABC News correspondent Terry Moran made an explosive claim this week about his former employer and how it allegedly overhauled a report he led on the COVID lab leak theory after running it first by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In an interview published Friday by "The Fifth Column" podcast, Moran recalled a time he said he felt the "heavy hand of censorship" at the Disney-owned network.

Moran said in early 2021, he had seen discussions from "smart and serious" people online floating the possibility that COVID had leaked from a lab and that ABC's "Nightline" allowed him to pursue a story about the theory.

Moran recalled talking to various scientists and Trump administration officials in a piece that he said did not make any conclusive claims but nevertheless "laid it out."

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"We broke a little news that that lab had been funded by the Chinese military, despite the 'Bat Lady' [Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli] saying no, it hadn't... And we kind of laid it out," Moran said. "And at the end of the day, my own personal feeling was, you know, it's probably a little bit more likely it's natural. But if you told me it had leaked from the lab, fine. It's probably not cooked up. It's probably not a ‘Frankenvirus.’"

"And the day that it's supposed to air, it gets reviewed, and it comes back to me, and it is incomprehensible," Moran continued. "And I had never been angrier. I'm in the booth–"

"Are these lawyers?" podcast co-host Michael Moynihan asked.

"Lawyers, standards and, I was told, Fauci," Moran responded. "And I said, 'I can't do this.' And they're going to air and it's a 15-minute piece or whatever. And I'm cursing and screaming in the the booth."

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"And this is day of?" co-host Matt Welch followed.

"Day of air," Moran said. "And I am just absolutely livid, beside myself. And I'm usually — I try to be a good colleague that way. It's important to be respectful of somebody on the other end of that mic taking it in in New York and the editor... I have never watched that story and never want to, because it wasn't mine, I didn't think, and most importantly because it was incomprehensible. They had put so many caveats in there, and it was so legalized."

"So they took the story that you did and either sent a copy of the transcript or a copy of the video to Anthony Fauci?" Moynihan then asked.

"It would've been the script — that's what I was told. I don't know if that's true personally, but I was told that," Moran answered.

In the two-part segment that aired in June 2021, Moran's segment put a spotlight on the debate over the origins of COVID. While he did interview Jamie Metzl, then a member of the World Health Organization's committee on human genome editing who had been outspoken about a potential leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Metzl was outnumbered by other medical experts Moran interviewed who rejected the theory. Additionally, the segment included interviews of ABC News medical unit producer Sony Salzman and investigative reporter Sasha Pezenik, who also poured cold water on the lab leak.

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Moran, who exited the network in 2025, went on to denounce the "demonization" of Fauci, calling it wrong and labeling him a public servant who did his best.

Neither Moran, Fauci, nor ABC News responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. Fox News Digital also sent an inquiry to the White House.

Fauci has resurfaced in recent weeks following the revelations from his diary published by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that put a spotlight on how his private thoughts about COVID often contradicted what he said publicly, including about public health guidelines.

The diary also revealed his behind-the-scenes chumminess with numerous media figures, including CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he pleaded the fifth 111 times during last month's hearing, accusing Paul of leading a crusade to imprison him. A criminal referral was made to the Department of Justice.

The lab leak theory has since been embraced by multiple U.S. government agencies in recent years as the most likely origin of the COVID pandemic, including the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Energy. Many scientists continue to hold to the so-called "natural origin" theory and the topic continues to be hotly debated.