THE BREAKDOWN: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified hundreds of pages of documents concerning the investigation into COVID-19’s origins. The files detail how Dr. Anthony Fauci steered intelligence officials toward a natural-origin theory, outline a May 2020 weapons analyst report concluding that a Wuhan lab accident was highly plausible, and reveal that a whistleblower accused Fauci of lying under oath about funding for viral research.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified hundreds of pages of documents on Thursday evening concerning allegations of a cover-up regarding the COVID-19 lab leak theory. The newly released files focus heavily on the involvement of the nation’s former top public health official, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and his interactions with the American intelligence community.
In an accompanying statement, Gabbard accused Fauci and his colleagues in both the scientific and intelligence sectors of executing a strategy straight from “the deep state playbook.” The Daily Caller News Foundation had previously reported on Fauci’s interactions with spy agencies last year. Investigators on Gabbard’s task force reviewed the cache of documents and took testimony from internal whistleblowers who claimed they faced professional retaliation after challenging the natural-origin narrative favored by public health leadership.
“The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous hardship and pain for millions of our fellow Americans and for countless people around the world,” Gabbard said in her statement. “After years of lies, censorship, and cover ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability.” Fauci did not respond to a request for comment regarding the release.
The declassified records detail significant behind-the-scenes influence exerted by Fauci during the intelligence community’s evaluation of how the pandemic started. Despite a potential conflict of interest—given that his agency had funded and promoted research to develop novel coronaviruses, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—intelligence officials actively sought his input. One intelligence official wrote in an email, “Given Dr Fauci’s background we absolutely would like to follow-up on his outreach suggestions. In this case he’s not a policymaker….he’s a [subject matter expert] with a wealth of knowledge about current and historical research who probably knows better than most who the real Coronavirus experts are.”
The files show that Fauci used this access to shape the National Intelligence Council’s perspective, heavily pushing a March 2020 paper titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which dismissed a laboratory origin as highly unlikely. While Freedom of Information Act disclosures previously revealed that Fauci helped instigate that paper behind the scenes, the new documents show that during President Joe Biden’s 2021 90-day intelligence review, Fauci repeatedly directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence toward the paper’s authors.
In May 2021, after being briefed on a Presidential Daily Brief noting that the virus’s origin remained elusive, Fauci directed officials toward a Tulane University virologist, Robert Garry, who argued for a natural origin. The next month, Fauci advised the intelligence community to consult Scripps Institute virologist Kristian Andersen, the lead author of the “Proximal Origin” paper.
When intelligence leaders later briefed Congress, they refused to name the outside experts they had consulted. This lack of transparency drew sharp rebukes from both sides of the aisle, with House Select Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup chastising the officials and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi noting the secrecy made the intelligence community look bad. Neither Andersen nor Garry responded to immediate requests for comment.
Beyond Fauci’s direct outreach, the documents reveal a sharp internal divide among intelligence analysts. In May 2020, the Z Division—a specialized team of foreign weapons experts within the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—concluded that an accidental leak was entirely possible. Relying on published scientific papers and classified CIA field conversations, the team wrote, “We assess that all the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus — specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cells receptors — were present at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in mid-to-late 2019.”
This Z Division assessment directly challenges the long-held argument by many mainstream virologists who claimed a lab leak was a conspiracy theory because the Wuhan lab supposedly lacked a virus genetically similar enough to be the source. However, records show higher-ups at the National Intelligence Council and the ODNI dismissed these findings, sidelining the biological weapons experts within the national laboratories, the FBI, and the National Center for Medical Intelligence.
The files also shed light on the involvement of Ralph Baric, a prominent U.S. virologist who had previously collaborated with the Wuhan lab on coronavirus engineering experiments—including a 2018 grant proposal that critics have described as a virtual blueprint for the COVID-19 virus. According to the declassified logs, Baric advised the intelligence community at least four times during the first two years of the pandemic. He did so through his role on the Biological Science Expert Group, an advisory panel on biological weapons.
Notes from a critical Winter 2020 meeting remain entirely redacted, but the records show Baric was invited to weigh in three more times during Biden’s 90-day review, despite his direct ties to the Wuhan research. Internal emails show National Intelligence Council personnel actively recommending that agencies seek Baric’s counsel on whether the virus showed signs of genetic engineering. Baric recently retired from the University of North Carolina; inquiries sent to his scheduler and wife received no reply.
Additionally, the documents contain several readouts of classified briefings referencing intelligence that researchers at the Wuhan facility became ill with a respiratory virus in the fall of 2019. While the newly declassified papers do not contain raw intelligence reports or summaries of these specific cases, the references provide official acknowledgment of media reports regarding sickened lab staff right before the public outbreak.
Finally, the tranche details a 2021 whistleblower complaint submitted to the intelligence community’s internal watchdog. The complaint accused Fauci of lying under oath during congressional questioning by Senator Rand Paul regarding whether his institute funded “gain-of-function” research—experiments that make viruses more lethal or contagious—at the Wuhan lab.
Fauci had adamantly denied the allegation under oath. Despite the gravity of the claim against the nation’s top biodefense official, the intelligence community declined to investigate, passing the responsibility to the Department of Health and Human Services. An intelligence official wrote at the time, “We determined this complaint does not meet the urgent concern standard because the allegedly false statement was made by a non-IC official and it pertains to an activity that the IC [inspector general] has no reason to believe is related to an intelligence activity or has a direct impact on any IC element, personnel, or capability.”
It remains unclear whether the health department’s watchdog, led at the time by Biden appointee Xavier Becerra, ever investigated the referral.
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