WASHINGTON — Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a trove of files Friday detailing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic — showing that officials protected him from a whistleblower complaint alleging he lied to Congress about “gain of function” research after he suggested pangolins were to blame for the outbreak that killed millions.
Fauci, the documents show, met with a group of CIA officials on June 4, 2021, weeks after his fiery May 11 denial to Congress that he funded risky research into coronaviruses in the same Chinese city where the pandemic began.
While briefing the CIA, Fauci “keyed in on specifics” about the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) experiments on pangolin samples, according to a summary report.
“Dr. Fauci was particularly interested in the WIV’s work on pangolins and asked for specifics on the type of experiments the Chinese were conducting on pangolin samples in the fall of 2019,” the recap says.
Another document said of the meeting that Fauci gave the impression that he was “presumably not tracking” the pangolin research.
It does not describe Fauci raising any alarms about research that he was funding at the same lab in Wuhan — including work by the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance that modified at least three bat coronaviruses and found they became much more infectious when human-type receptors were added.
The Gabbard-released files do not appear to expand on what is known about Fauci’s funding for the Wuhan lab.
The release comes just over a month after Fauci survived the five-year deadline for criminal charges to be filed against him for allegedly lying to Congress — though Justice Department officials are still considering how he might be punished for his role in the alleged coverup.
Significantly, the documents make clear the CIA was aware that WIV staff had become ill in late 2019 before the virus swept the globe.
While meeting with the CIA, Fauci “highlighted the importance of getting samples from the individuals at WIV who were ill in the fall of 2019” — but pivoted away from the now-dominant lab leak theory to redict focus onto a wet market in Wuhan where some early cases emerged.
“Dr. Fauci expressed concern about Beijing’s quick and thorough cleaning of the Huanan Seafood Market. He noted that Beijing may have made a serious epidemiological misstep that could have destroyed key clues as to how the pandemic began,” a writeup of the meeting says.
‘Does not meet the urgent concern standard’
Not long after Fauci met with the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence received a whistleblower complaint alleging that the country’s top infectious disease official lied to Congress about “gain of function” — a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Then-DNI Avril Haines determined that Fauci, at the time President Biden’s chief medical adviser, should be referred to a fellow political appointee, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, rather than HHS’s impartial inspector general.
ODNI’s acting inspector general Tamara Johnson wrote in an August 11, 2021, email to Haines that “the complaint alleges Dr. Fauci provided false testimony to Congress related to the conduct of gain of function research at the National Institutes of Health, thereby ‘misleading the American people and Congressional oversight.’”
“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 IG has no reason to believe is related to an intelligence activity or has a direct impact on any IC element, personnel, or capability,” Johnson wrote to Haines.
A week later, Haines’s top lawyer Christopher Fonzone reached out to her about the whistleblower complaint against Fauci.
“Following up on our conversation this morning, we have reviewed transcripts from some of Dr. Fauci’s appearances on the Hill,” he wrote.
“Based on that review, it seems likely that the whistleblower complaint was referring to exchanges Dr. Fauci had with Senator Paul on May 11 and July 20. During the May 11 hearing, Dr. Fauci stated that ‘the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute.’ During the July 20 hearing, Senator Paul confronted Dr. Fauci on the prior statement, asking him if he wanted to retract it; Dr. Fauci of course stood behind it.”
Fonzone wrote: “I think the key thing is that what we’ve seen is consistent with the point that Secretary Becerra made to you – that this is something they’ve considered and that Dr. Fauci has point he’s repeated about the NIH not funding gain-of-function at the WIV.
“We’ve thus updated the draft letter to note this point and to refer the complaint to Secretary Becerra, rather than the HHS IG.”
The internal communications show that the Biden-era intelligence community usually followed Fauci’s recommendations, and Gabbard’s office argued that the Wuhan Lab is now seen as the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“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 a statement. “After years of lies, censorship, and cover-ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability.”
“The tactics used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook: politicized self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected President by restricting his access to vital facts.”
Gabbard officially wrapped up her last day as director of national intelligence on Thursday, teeing up Bill Pulte to come in as acting director.
Many of the documents in question include assessments from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and other GOP critics of the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director.
The files show how Fauci advised the Weapons & Counterproliferation Mission Center (WCPMC) and other intelligence teams on the COVID-19 respiratory illness.
The document redacted specific details of Chinese experiments Fauci expressed unawareness of in that briefing.
Fauci also gave the CIA investigative instructions, but specifics of what he requested were redacted. He also urged the intelligence community to connect with three doctors who were more aligned with the theory that COVID-19 came from natural origins.
Last year, shortly after President Trump was sworn back into office, the CIA announced that it concluded with low confidence that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a lab. That came after former CIA Director William Burns, who led the spy agency during the Biden administration, pressed for Langley to stop being neutral on the question.
The FBI and Energy Department, which runs a network of labs and research facilities across the country, had also leaned towards an iteration of the lab leak theory.
