WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released declassified information Friday on US taxpayer funding of more than 120 biological labs in 30 plus foreign countries — with the outgoing spy chief blasting Biden administration officials for having “lied” about their existence.
“Despite the obvious potential for catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have, politicians, so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth,” Gabbard said.
“ODNI will continue to work closely with partners across the government to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain to end dangerous Gain-of-Function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and people around the world,” she added.
The Post first reported on the findings last month, noting that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had sought transparency as part of an effort to eliminate possibly dangerous experiments with pathogens that have the potential to explode into pandemics.
Experts have disputed that the Biden administration covered up the existence of the labs or that their work poses a threat to the US.
The investigation was conducted pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on so-called “gain-of-function” research, which can make viruses and other pathogens more transmissible.
“Many of these U.S. government-funded biolabs are currently or have previously engaged in research using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases to include dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight,” ODNI said in its press release.
Around one-third of the biolabs cited in the declassified documents are located in Ukraine, putting them at risk of “compromise” due to their having held risky pathogens and being vulnerable amid Russia’s war.
Pathogens with the potential to biological weapons had been stored in some of the labs since the Soviet era, with the US working in tandem with Ukrainian scientists to contain any risks.
The pathogens included “Anthrax, tularemia, tuberculosis, Swine Fever, New Castles Disease, MERS, SARS, Marburg, Ebola, Lassa, the Plague, Rickettsia” and others, per the files.
Four of the labs had a total cost to taxpayers of more than $9 million, the records show.
The Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, which oversaw the work, has long studied pathogens to prevent future outbreaks and enhance US biosecurity.
Russians accused some of the Ukrainian research done in partnership with the US of having been at the level of biological weapons work, the files stated.
“I am really confused as to why the DNI released something giving new life to a misleading narrative the entire intel community has known for decades to be a Russian trope and that the Trump administration worked hard to crush in its first term,” said Josh Segal, an expert on biological weapons who has served with American arms control delegations.
“Their labs are not now and were never secret, and do zero questionable work,” added Segal, who was also an expert on the UN special commission on Iraq’s bioweapons tech evaluation group.
“Cooperation with the US started as a highly publicized effort to convert former Soviet research facilities that may have been connected to the USSR’s covert BW program and involved Russian participation until a decade ago,” he added.
“This conversion program also was responsible for destroying 12 tons of weaponized anthrax the Russians abandoned on Resurrection Island in the Aral Sea.”
Biden’s Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified to Congress in March 2022 that “Ukraine has biological research facilities which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of,” but other administration officials dismissed the claims the following day.
ODNI officials previously said the about-face was part of an “Information Resilience” strategy that sought to “shape the public narrative” to “mitigate and counter foreign malign influence,” as well as downplay US ties to the research.
The US-Ukrainian research was also done in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
No other countries involved in the biological research were listed in the declassified documents.
Trump had signed an executive action in May 2025 to ban federal funding for gain-of-function research in China, Iran or other nations that don’t exercise proper oversight.
The president claimed that SARS-CoV-2 showed how dangerous pathogens “can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, but innocently and half destroy the world.”
Gabbard will leave her post at ODNI on June 19 after revealing she would be stepping down to help her husband with treatment for a rare form of bone cancer.
