COVID-19 Release Part 2 2016 DNI Gabbard

DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

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Tuesday, July 20, 2021 8:11 AM

RE: Possible reviewers for COVID Origins assessment

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is
…which I gather make him some kind of lobbyist, since that firm’s sole
purpose to promote the imagery products of its parent company to the US government.
is a
.
is an interesting idea, given his background at CIA and the NIC.
I’ll add him to the list and drop
and Clapper.

From:
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 3:48 PM
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Subject: RE: Possible reviewers for COVID Origins assessment

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Also, not Sue Gordon. Or Beth.
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Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 3:46 PM
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I think Clapper is probably too politically “hot.” Not Fauci; in addition to being a customer, he’ll be seen by many as
having a conflict of interest.
I could live without “formers.” But other possibilities might be people like
types, maybe. Would
do it?

Is

retired? Some CIA

Not Morell. Too public.
From:
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 2:14 PM
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Subject: Possible reviewers for COVID Origins assessment

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:
Below are the names for potential reviewers that we’ve come up with. The first four all have medical/scientific
backgrounds and extensive experience in public health and infectious diseases.
and
also have substantial
government (particularly CDC) experience as well.
is a political scientist by training, but has done a lot of work
in and out of the government on global health and international security. We added Clapper because we think we need
a reviewer with a deep background in the IC to look at this in addition to experts with more of an infectious disease
background.




s



James Clapper – Harvard, former Director of National Intelligence

These names notwithstanding, the name that came up probably the most when thinking of outside reviewer was Fauci,
but we’re not clear on how appropriate that would be, given he’s a potential customer of the paper. If he’s acceptable,
we’d include him.
Interested in your thoughts on these names and any others you think might be good to approach to review the paper.
We’ve already started the vetting process and are shooting for some time between 9- 13 August to have them review the
draft (FYI: BSEG will review the draft on 9 August). Also note that most of the above individuals are not in the WMA area,
so we’d need to fly them down and put them up in a hotel. Thanks –
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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

I've been detailed down to
I've been focused mostly on
modeling coordination so far (since Thursday...) but this definitely fits with my current mission also.

---------------------------------------

Chief Intelligence Officer
Joint Program Executive Office for CBRN Defense
Department of Defense

From:
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 3:02 PM
To:
Cc:

Subject: RE: (U) Interest in a discussion about COV SARS2 and gain of function research

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Nothing further from me. I have not responded to any of
higher priorities.

emails yet because I haven't had time today and have

4

From:
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 2:54 PM
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Subject: RE: (U) Interest in a discussion about COV SARS2 and gain of function research --- UNCLASSIFIED

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Does anyone have more info on the "colleague who has put together an analysis that may be wise to discuss at some
point."?? Some of our policymakers have heard from a specific person at MITRE claiming the virus is genetically
engineered - but we haven't seen any specific analysis supporting the claim. Would love to learn more if someone has
seen this sort of analysis.

Bureau of Intelligence and Research
U.S. Department of State

From:
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2020 11:32 AM
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Cc:

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Nothing to add; just letting everyone know
is out this week, so you're stuck with me in NIO S&T. My molecular
biology and genetics are pretty thin, but my BS meter is strong. Please keep me in the loop and let me know if there's
anything I can do to assist.

-

From:
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 6:54 PM
To:
Cc:

Subject: RE: (U) Interest in a discussion about COV SARS2 and gain of function research

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Hi

When I saw in the cc line- "COV SAR2 and gain of function research", it got my attention.
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I've been tracking this pretty closely in the literature, and would advise to set a very high threshold for any GOF
interpretation as an origin of SAR COV-2.
Not saying it is impossible, but I think Occam's razor is the best guidance here.
While clearly the S protein furin cleavage site appears consistent with a GOF modification, there is precedent for cocirculating COV strains recombining.
Different coronaviruses do co-circulate in hosts, and this amino acid sequence is present in COVs circulating in other bat
hosts that are regionally co-located with the host from which RaTG13 was isolated.
Also, phylogenic analysis identifies this site as undergoing a high degree of homoplasy - so it's an adaptation hot spot.
So- lots of room for a natural explanations-many that I've captured and highlighted in my attached notes.

I'm aware of the accumulating evidence that opens the door for WIV GOF research on COV, and there maybe some
stuff I'm missing.
So I'm not saying WIV isn't guilty of creating this strain, but I think we need to pin it down hard before we make this
assessment.
To be honest - I cannot imagine the Chinese NOT doing this type of research, but an escaped P3+/P4 LAI would be
extraordinary.

is on the fence with this, and maybe leaning toward the GOF explanation, but as an actual trained
coronavirus virologist, he would be the first person I'd ask ( and I have).
If he goes all in on the GOF assessment, I'd bring Ralph Baric ii.
I think the IC needs to be very thorough with this analysis.

Hopefully you will find my notes helpful, but feel free to ignore them... they are really just for my own use as you will
see.

I'm out next week, unless

or

are unable to come in.

Good luck, and stay healthy!

7

National Intelligence Council / Office of the Director of National Intelligence

From:
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 2:03 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: (U) Interest in a discussion about COV SARS2 and gain of function research

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From:
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 2:02 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: (U) Interest in a discussion about COV SARS2 and gain of function research

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(U
) Hi
provided me your name when I called him a few minutes ago. We are colleagues from
DOE-IN. I recently took a three year appointment as a
at
hence the different email.
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(U
) I was hoping we could discuss the various information and analysis that is churning around regarding S
protein manipulation in the virology community and how the NIC is interpreting the information. I have a colleague who
has put together an analysis that may be wise to discuss at some point.

(U

) If there is a good time and number to reach you on Monday, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Support to ODNI

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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

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Attachments:

Wednesday, September 16, 2020 10:16 AM
RE: IC interest in Yan report about COVID origins
~_The_probable_final_draft_of_a_position_paper.pdf

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Hi
Just a thought: it would be interesting to compare the arguments in this report with the
, which also argued that the virus was

in

Best,

From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 9:16 AM
To:

Subject: IC interest in Yan report about COVID origins

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The below email thread may not have reached us at ODNI or CIA. I removed the distro lists because it was enormous and
made it difficult to read the actual emails. Regardless,
flagged it in his VTC reminder this morning so was
expecting it to come up on Friday anyway.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 6:57 PM
To:
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Subject: FW:

RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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Looks like you’re on the email, although perhaps the too-large distro prevented your receipt.
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
U.S. Department of State

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 8:34 PM
Subject: RE:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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We have done an initial read on the paper and some of the science looks credible, at first blush. We are going to circle
up this week to discuss the specific merits and drawbacks of the paper. Its got a lot of technical content that deserves
scrutiny.
Looping in some of our LANL colleagues.
We hope to have a solid read on the specific details by the Friday COVID-19 weekly Synch VTC.
Regards
Lawrence Livermore National Lab

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 9:23 AM
Subject: RE:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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A couple virologists at State and I reviewed a version of her paper – it’s been circulating for at least a month or so. In
short, it’s nonsense. The conclusions she draws require some real misinterpretations of the science and many
contradicted by published work on the virus evolution/genetics.
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
U.S. Department of State

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 10:20 AM
Subject:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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Hi team – Is anyone looking at the open source report that a Chinese virologist claims to have proof that COVID-19 was
made in a Wuhan lab? We’re getting questions from our leadership and I figured those with more technical expertise
probably have already evaluated this report. (New York Post, Chinese Virologist Claims She has Proof COVID-19 was
Made in Wuhan Lab, 11 September 2020)

Office of Intelligence & Analysis

From:
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 11:01 AM
Subject: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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See you at 10!
From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 9:31 AM
Subject: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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Good morning,
The NIC will host the weekly COVID-19 analytic synch VTC this Friday, 11 September, from 1000-1130 AM EDT. Topics of
discussion will include introductions and a summary of key questions, policy engagements, and recent or upcoming
production.
For those interested, new to COVID-19, or in touch with colleagues at home, I thought I’d flag this free course by MIT on
COVID-19, which involves one one-hour lecture each week. Details, including a syllabus, are available at
https://biology.mit.edu/undergraduate/current-students/subject-offerings/covid-19-sars-cov-2-and-the-pandemic/.
Upcoming topics include vaccines, immunology, and epidemiology related to COVID-19. Please follow your agency’s
guidance for outside training. About 2000 people watched the first lecture, which did not have an ASL interpreter but
did have captions in English. Lectures are available a few days later on YouTube.
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic
In Fall 2020, all MIT students and the general public are welcome to join Professors Richard Young and Facundo
Batista as they discuss the science of the pandemic during this new class. Special guest speakers include: Anthony
Fauci, David Baltimore, Britt Glaunsinger, Bruce Walker, Eric Lander, Michel Nussenzweig, Akiko Iwasaki, Arlene
Sharpe, Kizzmekia Corbett, and others. The class will run from September 1, 2020 through December 8, 2020 and
begin each Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. ET. The live stream will be available to the public, but only registered students
may ask questions during the Q&A. Miss a class? You’ll be able to view a video of the lecture on this page.
If you have any VTC questions or would like to be added to Friday’s conference, please do not hesitate to contact the
Video Operations Center (VOC) at
(I cannot add gateways and such myself). If you are dialing in, you can call
the VOC from a secure phone up to 10 minutes before the meeting. Have the conference ID ready, the VOC will then
transfer your secure phone into the meeting.

Conference ID:

Conference Name: COVID COI Synch

Subject:
Notes:
Start Setup Time: 11 SEP 2020 09:50 EST/DST

End Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 11:30 EST/DST

Start Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 10:00 EST/DST Requestor: CIA 3
Conference Status: Resolved

NCMI 1
CIA GW 13
NGA NCE GW 02

Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
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FBI CLK GW 3
CDC ATLANTA
DHS HQ GW 3
NSAW GATEWAY 03
ONI 3A102
ROWE VTC RM 3051
LLNL-NAI 2
A2 BLDG 5681.4

Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved

In the event I am out of the office, please contact the following alternate POCs at the NIC:


As of early September, WMD’s team schedule is the following:
 9/8-11:


9/14-18:

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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
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Thursday, September 17, 2020 9:17 AM

RE: Daily Beast counter to "Yan Report" on covid origin

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I am going to touch base with
As with past requests on IC evaluation of these types of
questions, since, as you note, these are better suited for the broader scientific community. I am going to
recommend that
steer
to the CDC-led SPHERES effort. SPHERES is a consortium
(includes federal, state, private, academic, research, corporate, and international health entities) looking
at the genome of SARS-CoV-2.
(U) SPHERES: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/spheres.html

(U) ========================================

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From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 1:45 PM
To:

Subject: RE: Daily Beast counter to "Yan Report" on covid origin

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From:
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 6:15 PM
To:
Subject: Daily Beast counter to "Yan Report" on covid origin

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I haven’t read the report itself yet but consider yourself braced
From:
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 5:56 PM
To:
Subject: [AIN]
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-linked-groups-push-study-claiming-chinamanufactured-covid/
Steve Bannon Is Behind Bogus Study That China Created COVID
The study goes against basically all scientific evidence and expert opinion.
But it fits with the former Trump adviser?s anti-China posture.

Adam Rawnsley

Lachlan Markay

Updated Sep. 15, 2020 4:18PM ET / Published Sep. 15, 2020 3:16PM ET

A new study purporting to show that the novel coronavirus was manufactured in
a Chinese lab waspublished by
a pair of nonprofit groups linked to Steve Bannon, the former top Trump
strategist now facing felony fraud charges.
The study, co-authored by a Chinese virologist who fled Hong Kong this year,
claims that ?laboratory manipulation is part of the history of SARS-CoV-2.? Its
findings were quickly picked up by a handful of prominent news organizations
such as theNew York Post, which hyped
the ?explosive? allegations that run counter to virtually all existing
scientific literature on the source of the virus.
The study is the work of the Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law
Foundation, sister nonprofit organizations that Bannon was instrumental in
creating. According to documents posted on the Society?s website last year, he
served as that group?s chair. The Bannon connection was first spotted by Carl
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Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, whocalled the
study ?bizarre
and unfounded.?
A search of Google Scholar and the Rule of Law Society and Rule of Law
Foundation websites indicates that the organizations have not previously
published scientific or medical research, and it?s unclear whether the paper
received any peer review. It was posted on Monday on the website Zenodo, a
publicly available repository of scientific and academic research to which
anyone can upload their work.
Both of the nonprofits behind the study were formed in conjunction with
exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, with whom Bannon has collaborated on a
number of advocacy efforts targeting the Chinese government and business
endeavors that have drawn the scrutiny
of federal law enforcement officials.
In addition to their work on the Rule of Law nonprofits, Bannon and Guo have
also collaborated
on a news website, G News, that has published stories
suggesting that the coronavirus was manufactured by
the Chinese military.
In July, Bannon appeared to tease forthcoming scientific studies supporting
his contention that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. He
told theDaily Mail
that scientists from the lab had ?defected? to the U.S. and were collaborating
with American intelligence agencies. On the ?War Room: Pandemic? podcast,
Bannon has hosted others who have speculated that the virus may have been a
Chinese ?bioweapon,? but he has said that he believes the most plausible
explanation is that it ?came out of experiments that were going on? at that
Wuhan lab.
That?s a line that has been echoed by some prominent U.S. officials.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have both alluded
to intelligence reports supporting that theory. ?This evidence is
circumstantial, to be sure,? wrote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) in an April column
for theWall Street Journal, ?but it all points toward the Wuhan labs.?
While an accidental leak from the virology lab in Wuhan remains a theoretical
possible source of the initial outbreak in the city, the vast majority of the
scientific literature on the virus has determined that its origins were
natural, and that it was not laboratory manufactured. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the
Trump administration?s coronavirus point-person, has stressed repeatedly
that all evidence indicates the virus was not man-made.
The study published by Bannon?s group on Monday is therefore particularly
incendiary. ?This virus is not from nature,? declared Dr. Li-Meng Yan, one of
the scientists who conducted the study, during a Monday appearance on a British
talk show. She called reports that the virus originated in a Wuhan meat market
?a smoke screen? designed to obscure its true origins.
But other virologists don?t agree and say the paper makes false claims about
a number of basic facts. ?Basically, it's all circumstantial and some of it is
entirely fictional,? Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University,
told The Daily Beast of the study.
5

The paper leads with a claim that the coronavirus' genes are "suspiciously
similar to that of a bat coronavirus discovered by military laboratories" in
China?an assertion Rasmussen says, that shouldn?t be surprising because ?they
are related SARS-like coronaviruses.?
The study?s authors made a similar claim about a portion of the SARS-CoV-2
spike protein?which viruses use to breach and infect cells?and wrote that it?s
similar to the original SARS virus in a ?suspicious manner? and suggests
genetic manipulation. ?SARS-CoV also used ACE2 as a cellular receptor, as do
other SARS-like bat coronaviruses,? Rasmussen says. ?It is not suspicious and
is in fact expected that the receptor binding domains that bind the same
protein would be similar.?
Rasmussen also said that the paper misrepresented basic facts about another
part of coronavirus spike proteins known as furin cleavage sites. The authors
claim that SARS-CoV-2?s cleavage site is ?unique? and unseen elsewhere in
nature. But according to Rasmussen, ?Furin cleavage sites occur naturally in
many other beta-CoVs, including MERS-CoV and other SARS-like bat coronaviruses.?
Yan has said that she fled China to avoid reprisals from the government there
over her allegations that it was not being forthcoming about the origin and
nature of the virus. She said she warned officials in December that the virus
was highly transmissible between humans but that her allegations were ignored.
The University of Hong Kong?s school of public health, where Yan was
employed, has disputed
her allegations that the university failed to heed her warnings prior to the
outbreak in China.
In August, Yan appeared on Bannon?s podcast. During that show, Bannon said
that he was ?still not in the camp that believes they purposely let it out but
I?ve been strongly in the camp from the beginning that it came out of the Wuhan
P4 lab.?
Unrelated to his work with the Rule of Law groups, Bannon is also facing
felony charges over what federal prosecutors say was an effort to extract
millions of dollars from a nonprofit seeking to privately finance the
construction of a wall on the southern U.S. border. Bannon has pleaded not
guilty to the charges.

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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
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Friday, September 18, 2020 12:01 PM

RE: IC interest in Yan report about COVID origins

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Thanks

From:
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2020 9:11 AM
To:
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Subject: RE: IC interest in Yan report about COVID origins

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Good Morning,

With respect to technical feasibility, known capabilities and a parsimonious starting point for cloning I’d like to flag this
section of the Yan report from page 19:
Step 4: Produce the designed viral genome using reverse genetics and recover live viruses (0.5 month)
The input is a text file of the desired viral genome (no physical DNA/RNA backbone or virus specimen required) – thus
removing the need for many of the mutagenesis and cloning steps from the first part of the Yan report.
Baric’s lab demonstrated this synthetic approach in a 2008 PNAS paper titled, "Synthetic recombinant bat SARS-like
coronavirus is infectious in cultured cells and in mice" (pdf attached).
^”The genomic cDNA fragments were commercially synthesized, inserted into vectors, assembled into a full- length cDNA,
and transcribed in vitro to yield genomic RNA." [The in vitro product was then electroporated into cells.]
In reviewing WIV and Wuhan capabilities I found a few references of note for synthesis and assembly of long nucleic acid
sequences – these approaches could be used to generate a SARS backbone entirely from chemical synthesis of
1

researcher-specified genetic sequence from a text file or from a hybrid of PCR fragments and chemically synthesized
fragments – resulting in a fully-engineered genome of desired sequence.
Unknown is whether the WIV does nucleic acid synthesis in-house or outsources. But the examples below shows the
expertise and tools are both at the WIV and other Wuhan institutions and were easy enough to teach to undergrads in
2013. Notably these methods aren’t new as highlighted by the dates below – and they would have only improved since
then.
1)
One was a Wuhan team from a 2013 iGEM competition where university (undergrad) students were using
Gibson assembly. Although the students weren’t working on viruses for iGEM, their mentor, Yu Chen, was/is a SARS
virologist who has used nucleic acid synthesis to produce desired constructs from sequence data, “The cDNA of MERSCoV nsp14 was chemically synthesized according to the deposited sequence of MERS-CoV (GenBank accession No.
KF192507.1) and cloned into pMceK294A.” (iGEM word doc attached; MERS ref above is from Antiviral Research 104
(2014) 156–164).
2)
In 2016 a WIV researcher published a shuttle vector for transformation-associated recombination (TAR)
assembly of large DNA fragments in yeast (pdf attached, Virologica Sinica 2016, 31 (2): 160–167 DOI: 10.1007/s12250016-3730-8). The senior author, Gengfu Xiao, did SARS research c. 2004, then seemed to work on other viruses at the
WIV but reappeared on a bunch of SARS-CoV-2 papers in 2020. He’s also WIV Deputy Director-General and Secretary of
Party Committee at the WIV, from Wikipedia.
3)
Other WIV chemical synthesis of viruses, Virologica Sinica 2011, 26(3) (pdf attached)
Abstract: Torque teno virus (TTV) is a nonenveloped virus containing a single-stranded, circular DNA genome of
approximately 3.8kb. We completely synthesized the 3808 nucleotides of the TTV (SANBAN isolate) genome, which
contains a hairpin structure and a GC-rich region. More than 100 overlapping oligonucleotides were chemically
synthesized and assembled by polymerise chain assembly reaction (PCA), and the synthesis was completed with splicing
by overlap extension (SOEing). This study establishes the methodological basis of the chemical synthesis of a viral
genome for use as a live attenuated vaccine or gene therapy vector.
Best,

From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020 9:16 AM
To:

Subject: IC interest in Yan report about COVID origins

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The below email thread may not have reached us at ODNI or CIA. I removed the distro lists because it was enormous and
made it difficult to read the actual emails. Regardless,
flagged it in his VTC reminder this morning so was
expecting it to come up on Friday anyway.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 6:57 PM
To:
Subject: FW:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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Looks like you’re on the email, although perhaps the too-large distro prevented your receipt.
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
U.S. Department of State

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 8:34 PM
Subject: RE:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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We have done an initial read on the paper and some of the science looks credible, at first blush. We are going to circle
up this week to discuss the specific merits and drawbacks of the paper. Its got a lot of technical content that deserves
scrutiny.
Looping in some of our LANL colleagues.
We hope to have a solid read on the specific details by the Friday COVID-19 weekly Synch VTC.
Regards
Lawrence Livermore National Lab
3

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 9:23 AM
Subject: RE:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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A couple virologists at State and I reviewed a version of her paper – it’s been circulating for at least a month or so. In
short, it’s nonsense. The conclusions she draws require some real misinterpretations of the science and many
contradicted by published work on the virus evolution/genetics.
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
U.S. Department of State

From:
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 10:20 AM
Subject:
RE: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

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Hi team – Is anyone looking at the open source report that a Chinese virologist claims to have proof that COVID-19 was
made in a Wuhan lab? We’re getting questions from our leadership and I figured those with more technical expertise
probably have already evaluated this report. (New York Post, Chinese Virologist Claims She has Proof COVID-19 was
Made in Wuhan Lab, 11 September 2020)

Office of Intelligence & Analysis
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

From:
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 11:01 AM
Subject: Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:
4

From:
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 8:50 AM
Subject: FW: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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See you at 10!
From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 9:31 AM
Subject: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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Good morning,
The NIC will host the weekly COVID-19 analytic synch VTC this Friday, 11 September, from 1000-1130 AM EDT. Topics of
discussion will include introductions and a summary of key questions, policy engagements, and recent or upcoming
production.
For those interested, new to COVID-19, or in touch with colleagues at home, I thought I’d flag this free course by MIT on
COVID-19, which involves one one-hour lecture each week. Details, including a syllabus, are available at
https://biology.mit.edu/undergraduate/current-students/subject-offerings/covid-19-sars-cov-2-and-the-pandemic/.
Upcoming topics include vaccines, immunology, and epidemiology related to COVID-19. Please follow your agency’s
guidance for outside training. About 2000 people watched the first lecture, which did not have an ASL interpreter but
did have captions in English. Lectures are available a few days later on YouTube.
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic
In Fall 2020, all MIT students and the general public are welcome to join Professors Richard Young and Facundo
Batista as they discuss the science of the pandemic during this new class. Special guest speakers include: Anthony
Fauci, David Baltimore, Britt Glaunsinger, Bruce Walker, Eric Lander, Michel Nussenzweig, Akiko Iwasaki, Arlene
Sharpe, Kizzmekia Corbett, and others. The class will run from September 1, 2020 through December 8, 2020 and
begin each Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. ET. The live stream will be available to the public, but only registered students
may ask questions during the Q&A. Miss a class? You’ll be able to view a video of the lecture on this page.
If you have any VTC questions or would like to be added to Friday’s conference, please do not hesitate to contact the
Video Operations Center (VOC) at
(I cannot add gateways and such myself). If you are dialing in, you can call
the VOC from a secure phone up to 10 minutes before the meeting. Have the conference ID ready, the VOC will then
transfer your secure phone into the meeting.

Conference ID:

Conference Name: COVID COI Synch

Subject: POCNotes:
Start Setup Time: 11 SEP 2020 09:50 EST/DST

End Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 11:30 EST/DST

Start Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 10:00 EST/DST Requestor: CIA 3
Conference Status: Resolved
6

NCMI 1
CIA GW 13
NGA NCE GW 02
FBI CLK GW 3
CDC ATLANTA
DHS HQ GW 3
NSAW GATEWAY 03
ONI 3A102
ROWE VTC RM 3051
LLNL-NAI 2
A2 BLDG 5681.4

Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved

In the event I am out of the office, please contact the following alternate POCs at the NIC:
 NIC COVID alias:
 NIO WMD & Proliferation:
As of early September, WMD’s team schedule is the following:
 9/8-11:


9/14-18: Zack Bernstein

(U) CIA Special Procedures FISA: This dissemination includes FBI information from FBI FISA collection. Such information,
and any information derived therefrom, may only be used in a US legal or administrative proceeding with the advance
authorization of the Attorney General. Any recipient interested in obtaining authorization for such use in a US legal or
administrative proceeding should contact FBI Headquarters. Any further dissemination outside of intelligence channels
and/or for law enforcement purposes must be made through FBI Headquarters. Any reproduction, dissemination, or
communication (including, but not limited to oral briefings) of this information must be accompanied by a statement of
these restrictions.

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From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Attachments:

Friday, October 23, 2020 8:53 AM

RE: reminder - please send updates by noon in lieu of COVID VTC (n/t)
CHD's Letter to Congress Urging COVID-19 Origins Investigation_20201021.docx; CHDpress-release_21-Oct-2020.pdf

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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Also in the news FYSA - letter and press release attached.
(U) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Children's Health Defense Call for Congressional Investigation of COVID origin
21-Oct-2020
Excerpts:
“Consider this hypothetical scenario: an important gain-of-function experiment involving a virus with serious pandemic
potential is performed in a well-regulated, world-class laboratory by experienced investigators, but the information from
the experiment is then used by another scientist who does not have the same training and facilities and is not subject to
the same regulations. In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the
virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?”[5]
These are not our words, but rather they are the words of Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID, in a 2012 letter to the
microbiology journal mBio advocating for gain-of-function experiments. Today, questions about the origin of COVID-19
have largely been dismissed without answers. We believe Dr. Fauci laid out a scenario eight years ago that deserves a
full investigation today, particularly when you consider that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing the very type of
research set forth in Dr. Fauci’s hypothetical scenario.[6]
Moreover, Ralph Baric, a leading U.S. coronavirus researcher, has pointed out that it is possible to engineer a virus
without leaving a trace.[34] He notes that SARS-CoV-2 was not engineered with any known published genetic
information and that it is not possible to tell if it was engineered using an unpublished genetic sequence.[35]
The Lancet COVID-19 Commission, which chose Daszak to lead their investigation into the origins of the virus, cannot be
trusted to effectively eliminate conflicts of interest from their investigation.[52]
[5] Anthony S. Fauci, “Research on Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus: The Way Forward,” MBio 3, no. 5 (October 9,
2012), https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00359-12.

[34] “Possibile creare un virus in laboratorio senza lasciare traccia? La risposta dell’autore della chimera del 2015 di cui
parlò Tg Leonardo,” L’HuffPost, September 14, 2020, https://www.huffingtonpost.it/entry/e-possibile-creare-un-virusin-laboratorio-senza-lasciare-traccia-la-risposta-dellesperto it 5f5f3993c5b62874bc1f7339.
[35] Sarah Scoles, “How Do We Know If a Virus Is Bioengineered?,” Medium, August 5, 2020,
https://onezero.medium.com/how-do-we-know-if-a-virus-is-bioengineered-541ff6f8a48f.
From:
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2020 7:37 AM
1

To:

2

Subject: reminder - please send updates by noon in lieu of COVID VTC (n/t)

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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

On your list of external reviewers,
is a reporter for
Not sure that changes your calculus- she’s a
fantastic journalist and I’m a huge fan (her twitter is where I first heard about the glory that is Schitt’s Creek).
You may also want to consider
– he was the
first
officer to respond to the cases of HIV in the US in 1980 and led the charge to tracking down the index case and
identify the virus. I do not believe he has publicly stated a position on COVID-19.
Disease Threat Intelligence Cell
Weapons and Counterproliferation Mission Center

From:
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 3:18 PM
To:
Subject: Things Probably Coming Your Way...

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(U

)

Hi all,
Thanks again for meeting with me last week to discuss the COVID-19 Origins paper—this certainly helped me to better
scope the potential annexes, graphics, and sections. I wanted to follow-up on two things: annexes/graphics that we will
be asking CIA for help with AND outside review.
Annexes & Graphics—After Friday, we will officially send out an outline. I’m avoiding sending it out electronically just
yet to avoid influencing individual agencies’ internal discussions. That being said, I wanted you to have a sense of what
we will be asking you for help with (*not set in stone ). If any of this doesn’t make sense, let me know. For the
graphics, we have a meeting w/ our graphics team on Thursday and will get a sense of their bandwidth (i.e. do we need
actually graphics help on the CIA side too)…
3

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From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
Attachments:

Tamara A. Johnson-DNIWednesday, August 11, 2021 11:23 AM
Avril D. Haines-DNI-

Follow Up Flag:
Flag Status:

Follow up
Flagged

ICWPA Complaint re: False Testimony to Congress
Letter to DNI re COVID origin urgent concern with enclosures
Signed.pdf

Classification:
Upon removal of attachments, this document is UNCLASSIFIED
Classified By:
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Declassify On:
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***Please disregard and delete previous transmission. The system sent my message before I completed the
classification. ***
Director Haines—
(U
) Attached please find the whistleblower complaint and underlying documentation we discussed during our
last monthly meeting. 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. As such,
we are not required to transmit this matter to you, but do so in the interest of keeping you fully informed. The statute
as interpreted by the September 3, 2019 OLC opinion does not require you to transmit this matter to the congressional
intelligence committees.
(U
) During our meeting we discussed referring this complaint to the HHS OIG. My team and I considered this
option and determined that, given the anonymous nature of the submitter rendering us unable to follow up to obtain
additional information, and the classification levels of the underlying information forming the basis of the submission,
we are very limited in what information we can share with HHS OIG. Additionally, the general dispute about “gain-offunction” research is already in the public domain making it highly probable that the HHS- OIG would already be aware of
the allegation that the Dr. Fauci’s testimony was inaccurate (albeit from a different source, not our ICWPA
submitter). Consequently, we determined there would be no merit in referring the matter to HHS OIG.
(U) I am available to discuss if you have any questions. Our Counsel team is providing a copy of the documentation to
for his situational awareness. Please let me know if you would like me to copy PDDNI Dixon on these matters as
well going forward.
Regards,
1

-- Tamara
Tamara A. Johnson
Acting Inspector General
Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC IG)

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From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 11:42 AM
FW: HHS investigation

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Does this help get the IC off the hook?
From:
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2021 11:41 AM
To:
Subject: [AIN] HHS investigation
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED

First on CNN: HHS watchdog announces review of NIH grants that likely includes
money connected to Wuhan lab
By Kristen Holmes and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
Updated 10:30 AM ET, Tue June 15, 2021

(CNN) Federal government investigators said Tuesday that they are launching a
review into how the National Institutes of Health manages and monitors its
grant program, which likely includes money connected to a Wuhan lab that GOP
lawmakers have been scrutinizing.
Republicans have zeroed in on NIH's relationship with EcoHealth Alliance, the
global nonprofit that helped fund some research at China's Wuhan Institute of
Virology, to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci and score political points.
1

The comprehensive review also coincides with renewed questions over the
origin of the Covid-19 virus and the potential role that China's Wuhan
Institute of Virology may have played.
"We share stakeholders' concerns regarding compliance and oversight of NIH
grant funds. We have been monitoring this issue for some time and consider it a
high-priority matter that can pose a threat to the integrity of the NIH grant
program," Tesia Williams, the director of communications for the Department of
Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, told CNN.
"Based on our preliminary research and analysis, HHS-OIG has decided to
conduct an extensive audit reviewing how NIH monitored selected grants and how
the grantees and subgrantees used and managed federal funds between years 2014
through 2021," Williams said.
Roughly 80% of NIH funding goes to supporting research grants, including
grants to foreign organizations. According to the work plan on the review, it
will look at how these grants are monitored and making sure the recipient's use
and management of NIH grant funds is in accordance with federal requirements.
One NIH official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity in order to
discuss the review openly, called it "political" in nature but believed that
ultimately it would be a good thing and would clear NIH of any wrongdoing.
"It's an opportunity to educate the public," the official said.
Questions about the relationship between NIH and EcoHealth Alliance have
grown louder after Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases within NIH, confirmed to lawmakers earlier this year that
hundreds of thousands of dollars that NIH had given to the New York-based
global nonprofit went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses
in bats.
"About $600,000 was spent over a five-year period," Fauci said during a
congressional budget hearing. "That comes to anywhere between $125 (thousand)
and $150,000 per year that went to collaboration with Wuhan."
A recent US intelligence report found that several researchers at China's
Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be
hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms. It's not clear
what might have affected the researchers, there is no indication they caught
Covid-19 and the lab strongly denied the report, calling it a lie to push the
so-called lab-leak theory for the disease origin.
There are competing theories about how the pandemic got started. One is that
it developed naturally in the wild and transferred from animal to human, as
many other viruses have in the past. Another is that such a naturally
originating virus was studied in a lab and accidentally infected someone. A
third theory, most widely discounted by scientists, is that it was engineered
in a lab and somehow leaked to humans.
For much of 2020, pursuing the lab leak theory was treated publicly as
xenophobic, and, thanks in part to an open letter signed by 27 scientists and
published in an influential medical journal in February 2020, scientifically
unsound.
But in recent months, the classified intelligence emerged that three
researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who were conducting the kind of
controversial research that some scientists now believe may have led to the
pandemic had gotten sick in the autumn of 2019, before the outbreak was known
to have begun, although there's no evidence they were infected with Covid-19.
2

Conservative attacks on Fauci have also intensified after media organizations
released a trove of the doctor's emails.
In one email sent to Fauci in April 2020, an executive at EcoHealth Alliance
thanked him for publicly stating that scientific evidence supports a natural
origin for the coronavirus and not a lab release.
Fauci recently told CNN's John Berman the email was being misconstrued and
called claims he had a cozy relationship with the people behind the Wuhan lab
research "nonsense."
"I have always said, and will say today to you, John, that I still believe
the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human, but I keep an
absolutely open mind that if there may be other origins of that, there may be
another reason, it could have been a lab leak," Fauci told Berman. "I believe
if you look historically, what happens in the animal-human interface, that in
fact the more likelihood is that you're dealing with a jump of species. But I
keep an open mind all the time. And that's the reason why I have been public
that we should continue to look for the origin.
"You can misconstrue it however you want -- that email was from a person to
me saying 'thank you' for whatever it is he thought I said, and I said that I
think the most likely origin is a jumping of species. I still do think it is,
at the same time as I'm keeping an open mind that it might be a lab leak."
Nonetheless, Republicans are using the emails -- and controversy about how
the pandemic began and whether US government grant money can be connected to it
-- to fundraise and campaign against the Biden administration.
GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has lashed out at Fauci, calling for his
ouster.
"He's continuously and deliberately misleading the public at every turn. It's
time to FIRE FAUCI," a Paul fundraising email read. "There are 2,000 emails
proving Fauci chose his own ego over the facts."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio recently penned a Fox News op-ed titled "If Biden
Believes in Science, He Must Fire Fauci."

President Joe Biden was asked earlier this month if he still had confidence
in Fauci.
"Yes, I am very confident in Dr. Fauci," Biden said.

CNN's Maggie Fox contributed to this report.

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From:
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To:
Cc:
Subject:
Attachments:

Follow Up Flag:
Flag Status:

Christopher C. Fonzone-DNIThursday, August 19, 2021 9:13 PM
Avril D. Haines-DNIStacey A. Dixon-DNI-; Morgan Muir-DNI-;
; Matthew C. Rhoades-DNI-;
Whistleblower Issue -- Revised Letter after Discussion and Transcript Review
HPSCI SSCI WB Transmittal Letter v.4 -- clean.docx; HPSCI SSCI WB Transmittal Letter
v.4.docx;
Letter to DNI re COVID origin urgent concern with
enclosures Signed.pdf
Follow up
Flagged

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Avril –
Following up on our conversation this morning, we have reviewed
transcripts from some of Dr. Fauci’s appearances on the Hill.
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.
Thus, while it is possible that Dr. Fauci has spoken to Congress about
gain-of-function research at some other point (he’s testified a number of
times!), 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; tracked changes
and clean versions are attached. We’ve also attached the original letter
from the IC IG, so you have everything in one place.
Many thanks, and happy to discuss, if it would be helpful to do so,
Chris
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From:
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To:
Subject:

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 11:19 AM
FW: NIH now says WIV did Gain of Function

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From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 11:12 AM
To:
Subject: RE: NIH now says WIV did Gain of Function

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Isn’t the strategy meeting w/ the DNI today? w/ legal,

, etc?

From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 11:10 AM
To:
Subject: RE: NIH now says WIV did Gain of Function

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What’s the meeting today?
From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 10:47 AM
To:
Subject: RE: NIH now says WIV did Gain of Function

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Yes, this and the lobsters. The meeting today will be key to figuring out a way forward.
From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 10:40 AM
To:
Subject: NIH now says WIV did Gain of Function

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I somehow missed this last week, but the NIH sent a letter to Congress basically saying that WIV did GOF after all…while
also saying that what they were working on could not have developed into SARS-CoV-2. Rand Paul then went on Axios
on HBO and claimed this is proof Fauci lied to Congress. So…this is just never going to end.

One person who might know what really happened in Wuhan
Print
25 October 2021 |
https://www.washingtonpost.com |
Opinion
Hits: 298
Too many questions are still unanswered about the origins of the pandemic. Though China’s doors remain
closed, there are significant and promising avenues for investigation in the United States.
The two major hypotheses for the virus origins are zoonotic spillover, from an animal to human perhaps with an
intermediate host, or that it leaked or escaped from a laboratory accident in Wuhan. The Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV) is one of the world’s major centers of study of bat coronaviruses, and was developing
genetically-modified variants able to infect human lung cells.

Zoonotic spillover is a plausible explanation based on historical experience, and scientists should pursue it
vigorously. But similar efforts must be made to discover whether a laboratory release or infection led to the
pandemic. Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit based in New York, organized a fiveyear research program funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to study bat coronaviruses and potential
spillover risk to people, with significant participation by the WIV and its scientist, Shi Zhengli. The government
of China, Ms. Shi and Mr. Daszak all insist the laboratory could not be the source of the pandemic strain. Mr.
Daszak has been particularly aggressive in promoting the zoonotic spillover hypothesis and attacking the
laboratory leak as a “conspiracy theory.”
Last week, it was disclosed that the EcoHealth Alliance in August filed a report on its research in 2018-2019 —
the report was two years late. This just happens to be the two-year period of the pandemic and intense debate
about the virus origins. No reason has been given. Mr. Daszak did not respond to our query. The tardy report
describes experiments, approved in advance by the NIH, to test the infectivity of the genetically-manipulated
viruses on mice with cells resembling those of the human respiratory system. The manipulations made the
viruses more lethal to the mice. Although the NIH continues to insist this did not fit the definition of “gain of
function” research, and could not have led to the pandemic strain, it certainly should have met the U.S.
government’s own requirements for stricter oversight.
Still, much is unknown. There is no direct evidence of zoonotic spillover, nor of a laboratory leak.
But unanswered questions keep emerging about Mr. Daszak and the WIV. He was at the center of public debate
over virus origins, the only American appointed to the joint World Health Organization-China mission. Why
did he not disclose his 2018 proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for
research on bat coronaviruses with the WIV and others, which called for engineering a modification onto spike
proteins of chimeric viruses that would make them infect human cells in the way the pandem ic strain did? What
2

does he know about the databases of viruses that WIV took offline in 2019 and never brought back? Does he
know what research the WIV may have done on its own, during or after their collaboration? What was being
done at WIV in the months before the pandemic?
Mr. Daszak must answer these questions before Congress. His grants were federal funds, and it is entirely
appropriate for Congress to insist on accountability and transparency. He might also help the world understand
what really happened in Wuhan.
©2021 https://www.washingtonpost.com, All Rights Reserved.

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Attachments:

Thursday, January 13, 2022 9:12 AM

RE: New Article on COVID
JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted.pdf

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Just so all are tracking, attached is one of the documents on

From:
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 8:55 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: New Article on COVID

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Yup, that should be doable. I think we’re looking at having the sync on the 28th.
From:
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 8:52 AM
To:
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Subject: RE: New Article on COVID
1

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Excellent. I liked the bat mist idea. Wandering the caves of Yunnan with giant spray bottles. Like the old DDT days.
Could you do up a memo on the sync that’s polished enough that we could dissem it? Not a NICM, SOCM. Probably
not a To-From memo, since I want to make it widely available on
(including
). We can fiddle with
final format later. Just do it almost as “report of the IC experts committee.”
From:
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 8:31 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: New Article on COVID

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Some of what’s in this is new to me, at least. In particular the statement that SARS-CoV-2 is “an American-created
recombinant bat vaccine.” A lot of it is not new, though. Some of the claims in this article are flat out wrong, while other
claims seem to conflate facts and make wild analytic leaps. DRASTIC is not, as identified in the article, associated with
the US government. It is a loose group of individuals on Twitter who describe themselves as “internet researchers and
sleuths” who post articles on COVID origins arguing that the pandemic was caused by a lab-related incident.
We’ll dig more into this today. FYI, we are also setting up another COVID sync with the IC in the next couple of weeks.

From:
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 7:43 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: New Article on COVID

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Is any of this new to you? Particularly “DRASTIC?” (see end of article.)
Thanks
-2

1. Marine researcher: COVID virus made in Chinese lab as bat vaccine
Bill Gertz, https://www.washingtontimes.com, 12 January 2022
A Marine Corps officer working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency disclosed in a memorandum last
August that his study of the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic concluded that it was produced as part of vaccine
research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to documents made public by a conservative investigative group.
Maj. Joseph P. Murphy notified the Pentagon inspector general that his analysis of the virus origin concluded the
nongovernment organization EcoHealth Alliance, the National Institutes of Health, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology
produced the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 through controversial gain-of-function research outlined in a Pentagon grant
proposal.
“SARS-CoV-2 is an American-created recombinant bat vaccine, or its precursor virus,” Maj. Murphy stated in an August
13, 2021, memo made public this week by Project Veritas. “It was created by an EcoHealth Alliance program at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as suggested by the reporting surrounding the lab leak hypothesis.”
Asked about the 24 pages of internal documents made public by Project Veritas, DARPA spokesman Jared Adams told
Inside the Ring in an email that federal regulations prohibit the agency from commenting on DARPA programs or
documents.
“We are precluded by Federal Acquisition Regulations from discussing who may or may not have bid on a DARPA
program, and are unable to confirm the authenticity of the documents Project Veritas has published,” Mr. Adams wrote.
Maj. Murphy and the Office of Naval Research did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
According to Project Veritas, Maj. Murphy declined to discuss the document but told the group: “To those that seek
answers I offer encouragement. There are good people striving for truth, working together in and out of government, and
they succeed. … Don’t let a lie be our legacy to posterity.”
According to Maj. Murphy, now with the Office of Naval Research, details of the program were hidden since the pandemic
began in Wuhan, China in December 2019. New facts were uncovered by Maj. Murphy from a grant proposal made to
DARPA by the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance in March 2018 and “not publicly disclosed,” he stated.
The proposal was made in response to DARPA’s Project Defuse, aimed at addressing what the agency called the threat
posed by bat-borne coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is a bat coronavirus.
The proposal lists several U.S. researchers who would take part in the work and included the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
located in the city considered the epicenter of the possible pandemic.
China’s government has denied the virus leaked from any of its laboratories, but has refused to provide information about
the virus’s origin. Beijing also has accused the U.S. military of launching the pandemic.
The $14 million grant proposal to DARPA was produced by Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance who worked
closely on dangerous virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Mr. Daszak did not immediately respond to an
email request for comment.
DARPA rejected the grant as potentially dangerous virus work, despite Mr. Daszak claiming in the proposal that the work
would not violate U.S. restrictions on gain-of-function research.
However, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Anthony Fauci, approved a grant for the
EcoHealth Alliance, and work on bat coronaviruses continued until halted by the federal government in April 2020.
Dr. Fauci has repeatedly denied during congressional testimony that the U.S. government funded any gain-of-function
virus research in China.
In the 2018 proposal, Mr. Daszak stated that “we will intensively sample bats at our field sites where we have identified
high spillover risk SARSr-CoVs” – the term for bat coronaviruses.
“We will sequence their spike protein, reverse engineer them to conduct binding assays and insert them into bat SARSCoVs (WIV1, SHC014) backbones (these use bat-SARSr-CoV backbones, not SARS-CoV, and are exempt from dual- use
and gain of function concerns) to infect humanized mice and assess capacity to cause SARS-like disease,” Mr. Daszak
stated.
The work was aimed at developing a vaccine to be sprayed on bats that the researchers believed would prevent another
disease outbreak like the first SARS outbreak in China in 2003.
3

Mr. Daszak said the work would include Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who was to
lead research on infecting humanized mice with the lab-created bat vaccine. Ms. Shi has also denied the lab has any role
in the origins of COVID-19 or its spread among the local population.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a public assessment last year that the virus was caused by either a leak from a
Chinese laboratory or from emergence from an infected animal. The Murphy memorandum reflects the views of a good
portion of U.S. intelligence analysts who believe the virus came from the Wuhan institute.
Maj. Murphy stated that his analysis is that the COVID virus likely emerged as a precursor, “deliberately virulent,
humanized recombinant” virus that was reverse-engineered into a live bat vaccine.
Regarding efforts to conceal the work, Maj. Murphy said Pentagon officials placed the unclassified EcoHealth Alliance
proposal in a top-secret file within DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.
Maj. Murphy stated that the COVID virus is a synthetic “chimera” or lab-produced virus engineered to infect human cells.
The virus is likely a live vaccine that escaped from the Chinese laboratory before it could be engineered into a less
dangerous state, he added.
“It leaked and spread rapidly because it was aerosolized so it could efficiently infect bats in caves,” Maj. Murphy said,
adding that initial escape took place in August 2019. The virus should be called “SARS-CoV- Wuhan,” Maj. Murphy stated.
The document also discloses the identity of a U.S. government team of experts who first concluded the virus came from a
leak at the Wuhan lab. The group is called the Decentralized Radical Search Team Investigating COVID- 19, or DRASTIC.
“This collection of scientists and sleuths broke open the lab-leak hypothesis into the mainstream and has picked apart
Chinese and World Health Organization (WHO) reports on SARS-CoV-2’s origins in Wuhan,” he said.

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4

DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

Asked about the 24 pages of internal documents made public by Project Veritas, DARPA spokesman Jared Adams told
Inside the Ring in an email that federal regulations prohibit the agency from commenting on DARPA programs or
documents.
“We are precluded by Federal Acquisition Regulations from discussing who may or may not have bid on a DARPA
program, and are unable to confirm the authenticity of the documents Project Veritas has published,” Mr. Adams wrote.
Maj. Murphy and the Office of Naval Research did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
According to Project Veritas, Maj. Murphy declined to discuss the document but told the group: “To those that seek
answers I offer encouragement. There are good people striving for truth, working together in and out of government, and
they succeed. … Don’t let a lie be our legacy to posterity.”
According to Maj. Murphy, now with the Office of Naval Research, details of the program were hidden since the pandemic
began in Wuhan, China in December 2019. New facts were uncovered by Maj. Murphy from a grant proposal made to
DARPA by the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance in March 2018 and “not publicly disclosed,” he stated.
The proposal was made in response to DARPA’s Project Defuse, aimed at addressing what the agency called the threat
posed by bat-borne coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is a bat coronavirus.
The proposal lists several U.S. researchers who would take part in the work and included the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
located in the city considered the epicenter of the possible pandemic.
China’s government has denied the virus leaked from any of its laboratories, but has refused to provide information about
the virus’s origin. Beijing also has accused the U.S. military of launching the pandemic.
The $14 million grant proposal to DARPA was produced by Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance who worked
closely on dangerous virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Mr. Daszak did not immediately respond to an
email request for comment.
DARPA rejected the grant as potentially dangerous virus work, despite Mr. Daszak claiming in the proposal that the work
would not violate U.S. restrictions on gain-of-function research.
However, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Anthony Fauci, approved a grant for the
EcoHealth Alliance, and work on bat coronaviruses continued until halted by the federal government in April 2020.
Dr. Fauci has repeatedly denied during congressional testimony that the U.S. government funded any gain-of-function
virus research in China.
In the 2018 proposal, Mr. Daszak stated that “we will intensively sample bats at our field sites where we have identified
high spillover risk SARSr-CoVs” – the term for bat coronaviruses.
“We will sequence their spike protein, reverse engineer them to conduct binding assays and insert them into bat SARSCoVs (WIV1, SHC014) backbones (these use bat-SARSr-CoV backbones, not SARS-CoV, and are exempt from dual- use
and gain of function concerns) to infect humanized mice and assess capacity to cause SARS-like disease,” Mr. Daszak
stated.
The work was aimed at developing a vaccine to be sprayed on bats that the researchers believed would prevent another
disease outbreak like the first SARS outbreak in China in 2003.
Mr. Daszak said the work would include Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who was to
lead research on infecting humanized mice with the lab-created bat vaccine. Ms. Shi has also denied the lab has any role
in the origins of COVID-19 or its spread among the local population.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a public assessment last year that the virus was caused by either a leak from a
Chinese laboratory or from emergence from an infected animal. The Murphy memorandum reflects the views of a good
portion of U.S. intelligence analysts who believe the virus came from the Wuhan institute.
Maj. Murphy stated that his analysis is that the COVID virus likely emerged as a precursor, “deliberately virulent,
humanized recombinant” virus that was reverse-engineered into a live bat vaccine.
Regarding efforts to conceal the work, Maj. Murphy said Pentagon officials placed the unclassified EcoHealth Alliance
proposal in a top-secret file within DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.
Maj. Murphy stated that the COVID virus is a synthetic “chimera” or lab-produced virus engineered to infect human cells.
The virus is likely a live vaccine that escaped from the Chinese laboratory before it could be engineered into a less
dangerous state, he added.
4

“It leaked and spread rapidly because it was aerosolized so it could efficiently infect bats in caves,” Maj. Murphy said,
adding that initial escape took place in August 2019. The virus should be called “SARS-CoV- Wuhan,” Maj. Murphy stated.
The document also discloses the identity of a U.S. government team of experts who first concluded the virus came from a
leak at the Wuhan lab. The group is called the Decentralized Radical Search Team Investigating COVID- 19, or DRASTIC.
“This collection of scientists and sleuths broke open the lab-leak hypothesis into the mainstream and has picked apart
Chinese and World Health Organization (WHO) reports on SARS-CoV-2’s origins in Wuhan,” he said.

======================================================
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DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
Sent:
To:

Friday, September 11, 2020 11:01 AM

1

As of early September, WMD’s team schedule is the following:
 9/8-11:


9/14-18:

From:
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 8:50 AM
Subject: FW: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
======================================================
See you at 10!
From:
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2020 9:31 AM
Subject: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
======================================================
Good morning,
The NIC will host the weekly COVID-19 analytic synch VTC this Friday, 11 September, from 1000-1130 AM EDT. Topics of
discussion will include introductions and a summary of key questions, policy engagements, and recent or upcoming
production.
For those interested, new to COVID-19, or in touch with colleagues at home, I thought I’d flag this free course by MIT on
COVID-19, which involves one one-hour lecture each week. Details, including a syllabus, are available at
https://biology.mit.edu/undergraduate/current-students/subject-offerings/covid-19-sars-cov-2-and-the-pandemic/.
Upcoming topics include vaccines, immunology, and epidemiology related to COVID-19. Please follow your agency’s
guidance for outside training. About 2000 people watched the first lecture, which did not have an ASL interpreter but
did have captions in English. Lectures are available a few days later on YouTube.
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic
In Fall 2020, all MIT students and the general public are welcome to join Professors Richard Young and Facundo
Batista as they discuss the science of the pandemic during this new class. Special guest speakers include: Anthony
Fauci, David Baltimore, Britt Glaunsinger, Bruce Walker, Eric Lander, Michel Nussenzweig, Akiko Iwasaki, Arlene
Sharpe, Kizzmekia Corbett, and others. The class will run from September 1, 2020 through December 8, 2020 and
begin each Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. ET. The live stream will be available to the public, but only registered students
may ask questions during the Q&A. Miss a class? You’ll be able to view a video of the lecture on this page.
If you have any VTC questions or would like to be added to Friday’s conference, please do not hesitate to contact the
Video Operations Center (VOC) at
(I cannot add gateways and such myself). If you are dialing in, you can call
the VOC from a secure phone up to 10 minutes before the meeting. Have the conference ID ready, the VOC will then
transfer your secure phone into the meeting.

Conference ID:

Conference Name:
3

Subject: POCNotes:
Start Setup Time: 11 SEP 2020 09:50 EST/DST

End Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 11:30 EST/DST

Start Conference Time: 11 SEP 2020 10:00 EST/DST Requestor: CIA 3
Conference Status: Resolved

NCMI 1
CIA GW 13
NGA NCE GW 02
FBI CLK GW 3
CDC ATLANTA
DHS HQ GW 3
NSAW GATEWAY 03
ONI 3A102
ROWE VTC RM 3051
LLNL-NAI 2
A2 BLDG 5681.4

Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved
Resolved

In the event I am out of the office, please contact the following alternate POCs at the NIC:
 NIC COVID alias:
 NIO WMD & Proliferation:
As of early September, WMD’s team schedule is the following:
 9/8-11:


9/14-18:

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4

DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:

Friday, March 17, 2023 6:05 PM

Subject:
Attachments:

FW: BSEG c.2020
Readout: Friday 10am: COVID-19 Weekly Analytic Synch VTC (Conference ID:... (49.9 KB)

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Hello,
Per

email, in the spreadsheet please add State to the core group of people invited to the small group meetings.

Thank you,

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

From:
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2023 5:25 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: BSEG c.2020

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Sorry just responding,

reached out and I think I got

what you needed? If not, let me know.

For the below directly, the last BSEG quarterly in Jan 2020 where we had
give a brief, that was physically hosted by
per the normal procedures at their office in Arlington for which you had to pass clearances (and thus
would have that list). After that, when things shut down, we started with weekly unclassified phone calls that
1

hosted with their telephone bridge that required a pin to join,
thought that was a
more secure mechanism than some other unclass options. Those weekly unclass calls
wouldn’t know who
participated, but our emails organizing those would have the names, and I think
has that now. I also pointed
to
Bio community email group, which is what we used for the broad BSEG meetings historically.
Another angle if this isn’t helping is I think we used the same audience as
attached.

I was able to find some of my emails, here’s one with distro:
From:
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2020 6:26 PM
To:

Cc:
2

weekly COVID sync meeting, example

Subject: RE: BSEG COVID19 Small Group: Unclass Call: 4 December 3:30pm EST

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Hi Everyone,
Attached are my notes from the call just now, I’m sharing with the caveat that these are rough notes, no QC has been
done for technical accuracy and these are not comprehensive and should not be viewed as a transcript (there were large
sections I missed capturing entirely).
-----------------------------------

PLEASE NOTE: WORKING PM SHIFT (Beginning at 1300)

From:
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 1:23 PM
To:

3

Cc:
Subject: BSEG c.2020

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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We are trying to recreate the BSEG attendance for those early 2020 meetings. Any chance you have notes from CENTRA
from this time, or recall where soft or hardcopy notes might be located?
Thanks

Chief, Chemical & Biological Warfare Group

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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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Classification: SECRET
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Classification: SECRET

4

DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Attachments:

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 9:15 AM
RE: [for
FW: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins
20200527 LLNL COVID-19 Lab Modification Conditions Present at WIV
(
).pdf

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======================================================
Thanks. Attached is the May 2020 Z-Division analysis that may be related to the claim that the former DOE Dep Sec told
Fauci that “DOE scientists had found evidence suggesting that the pandemic had originated at the WIV.” This, of course,
is not what the paper says. It only says that LLNL assessed that “all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release
of a laboratory-modified coronavirus…were present…” at the WIV. Which, by the way, is not substantiated in the paper.
It claims one of the necessary conditions was “access to a potential SARS-CoV-2 precursor coronavirus,” but we do not
now, nor did we back in 2020, have ANY reporting suggesting WIV had such a virus.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2023 5:29 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [for
FW: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

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Thanks,
the ref to the ODNI 2016 document was probably the ATA:
We continue to monitor emerging technologies that are potentially disruptive for WMD, as well as the
health and economic sectors. For example, research in genome editing conducted by countries with different
regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries increases the risk of the creation of potentially
harmful biological agents or products.[i][ii][iii][iv][v][vi][vii][viii][ix] Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated
pace of development of this dual-use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching
economic and national security implications. Advances in genome editing in 2015 have compelled groups of
high-profile US and European biologists to question unregulated editing of the human germline (cells that are
relevant for reproduction), which might create inheritable genetic changes.[x][xi][xii] Genome editing systems could
enable states to develop enhanced or advanced BW agents; however, states would almost certainly face
1

technical challenges to using genome editing systems to create advanced BW agents. We have no intelligence
reporting that any country is using these systems for offensive purposes, although legitimate and nefarious
purposes are very hard to distinguish, given that the facilities are small and the commercial incentive is great.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2023 5:00 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [for
FW: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

Classification:
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For this one:
 Is there a copy of this warning? Or how widely was it circulated? In mid-2019, an Energy Department official
went so far as to issue a specific warning to NIAID about the coronavirus research the agency was funding at the
WIV.
Maybe consider:
 Can we get a copy of this? How widely was it circulated? In mid-2019, an Energy Department official went so far
as to issue a specific warning to NIAID about the coronavirus research the agency was funding at the WIV.
For this one:
 The article makes reference to a DOE plan from 2016 to monitor sale of genetic components and better detect
evidence of genetic engineering is cited as being funded by Congress since 2019 – Welcome insight into better
understanding those efforts. Is this a reference to the work captured in DOE ETIP analytic products?
I don’t think this could be ETIP because I don’t think that’s the scope of the program and I believe it wasn’t funded
officially by congress until FY22. Might just strike the last sentence.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2023 4:42 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: [for
FW: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

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2

Defer to you on best way to engage DOE to follow-up on anything from the VF article; below are some things that I
would suggest:






What data on COVID origins is being referred to in this statement? In October 2020, VF has learned, Dan
Brouillette told Fauci that DOE scientists had found evidence suggesting that the pandemic had originated at the
WIV.
What is the scientific analysis that is being referred to in this statement? single lineage? A source with
knowledge of the DOE’s investigation tells VF that the agency had long been more confident in its scientific
analysis, and only later became more comfortable with the intelligence supporting it.
Is there a copy of this warning? Or how widely was it circulated? In mid-2019, an Energy Department official
went so far as to issue a specific warning to NIAID about the coronavirus research the agency was funding at the
WIV.
The article makes reference to a DOE plan from 2016 to monitor sale of genetic components and better detect
evidence of genetic engineering is cited as being funded by Congress since 2019 – Welcome insight into better
understanding those efforts. Is this a reference to the work captured in DOE ETIP analytic products?
In the March 2023 NICA,

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2023 12:56 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

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For awareness, the Vanity Fair story, attached, published today. The reporting describes differences—notably between
NIH and DOE—within the USG on risks associated with US-funded biology research. As expected, the story references
our published assessment on COVID origins.
Take care,
From:
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2023 12:55 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins
3

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Thank you (belatedly!) for the insight below – I appreciate it. We ultimately did not provide the reporter with any
useable lines and stressed off the record the range of expertise across the IC.
Thank you again,
From:
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2023 12:52 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: RE: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

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(taking

off as she is no longer at the NIC)

Some comments below in red. Let us know if you need anything else.
From:
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2023 4:29 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Vanity Fair Inquiry Re: COVID Origins

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
DELIBERATIVE PROCESS PRIVILEGED DOCUMENT
======================================================
Hi All,
a contributing editor at Vanity Fair who covers “medical and scientific mayhem,” contacted SC about a
piece
writing regarding dual research of concern. A sizeable portion of
piece will focus on COVID origins, to
include the impact that the unresolved origins of the virus has on Biden Admin policy.
looking at the USG’s
research on COVID origins within which
report on the IC and posed some questions to SC. I’m aiming to respond
to
no later than Tuesday next week.

4

Specific to ODNI,
cited the June 2023 “Potential Links Between WIV and the Origin of the COVID- 19 Pandemic”
report and asked for guidance on the following bullets; during our conversation I provided
some general off-therecord thoughts, but I advised I would consult with our analysts further.


Is it possible to name the “four other IC agencies” referenced alongside the NIC that assess the virus was most
likely caused by natural exposure?
o I advised that we cannot name these agencies. I imagine this is the case, but please confirm for me.
 We cannot name the other IC agencies



How much did the inputs of outside experts factor into the respective assessments of each IC agency? Can you
describe the weight given by each IC element to the inputs from outside experts?
o I advised that consultation with outside experts is among the resources the IC used alongside
intelligence reporting and study of academic literature. I don’t think there’s any further specifics we can
add, but please advise.
 Agree that’s about all we can say.


Who are the key players in the IC on this analysis? What kind of expertise and scientific staffing does the IC
bring to this problem? Sources claim that FBI and DOE have the deepest scientific benches in the IC – is this
true?
o I generally advised that the IC has a breadth of expertise that varies depending on the organization. I
told
we cannot provide specific staffing levels. If possible, I’d like to be able to provide
with a
line that lists the variety of experts within the IC on this issue. For example, the IC has immunologists,
biologists, etc. What do you all think?
 I don’t think it’s the NIC’s call on this. That said, I think it’s fair to say that many IC agencies
employee officers with backgrounds in biological sciences.



Is it accurate to report that DOE assesses that the virus was genetically engineered? DOE is an outlier in this
assessment, but sources say DOE has “new intelligence” that may have contributed to their assessment.
o I told
to contact DOE, but I welcome any thoughts here on the ground truth to help determine
whether any engagement on this point is warranted.
 Yeah, I’d refer
to DOE. To be clear: this is not what DOE assesses. In fact, they changed
their assessment in the March NICA to “not” genetically engineered. But that position has not
been declassified. So yeah:
should definitely check with them.

If there are any other points you all recommend to help illustrate the IC’s expertise on this issue, I welcome your
thoughts.
Many thanks in advance,

IC Press Secretary

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[i]

[Journal Article | Danilo Maddalo, et al. | Nature Magazine | In vivo engineering of oncogenic chromosomal rearrangements with the CRISPR/Cas9
system | 18 December 2014 | 423-427 | | 23 January 2015 | ]
[ii]
[Journal Article | Wen Xue, et al. | Nature | CRISPR-mediated direct mutation of cancer genes in the mouse liver | 16 October 2014 | 380-384 | | 30
March 2015 | ]
[iii]
[Journal Article | Rafael B. Blasco, et al. | Cell Reports | Simple and Rapid In Vivo Generation of Chromosomal Rearrangements using CRISPR/Cas9
Technology | 20 November 2014 | | | 30 March 2015 | ]
[iv]
[Journal Article | Haifeng Wan, et al. | Cell Research | One-step generation of p53 gene biallelic mutant Cynomolgus monkey via the CRISPR/Cas
System | 28 November 2014 | | | 30 March 2015 | ]
[v]
[Journal Article | Yuyu Niu, Bin Shen, Yiqiang Cui, Yongchang Cen, Jianying Wang, et al. | Cell | Generation of gene-modified cynomologous monkey
via Cas9/RNA-mediated gene targeting in one-cell embryos | 13 February 2014 | | | 6 March 2015 | ]
[vi]
[Internet Site | | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Life Technologies Releases CRISPR Products for Simple, Rapid Gene Editing | n/a | |
www.lifetechnologies.com/us/en/home/about-us/news-gallery/press-releases/2014/life-technologies-releases-CRISPR-products-for-simple-geneediting.html | 23 March 2015 | ]
[vii]
[Internet Site | | GE Healthcare | Edit-R CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Engineering | n/a | | dharmacon.gelifesciences.com/geneediting?wt.mc_id=PaidSearch_Google_ALL&wm_camp=Google_ALL&gclid=COg6b6RV8qcfchcfgodF6AQQ | 23 March 2015 | ]
[viii]
[Internet Site | | Clontech | The CRISPR/Cas9 System for Targeted Genome Editing | n/a | |
www.clontech.com/US/Products/Genome_Editing/CRISPR_Cas9_resources/About_CRISPR_Cas9 | 23 March 2015 | ]
[ix]
[Internet Site | | System Biosciences | CRISPR/Cas9 Smart Nucleases | n/a | | https://www.system.bio.com/crispr-cas9-systems | 23 March 2015 | ]
[x]
[Online Publication | Baltimore, Berg, Botchan, Church, Doudna, et al. | A Prudent Path Forward for Genomic Engineering and Germline Modification |
Science | 19 March 2015 | | www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6230/36.full.pef | 4 November 2015 | ]
[xi]
[Medical Journal Article | Edward Lanphier, Fyodor Urnov, et al. | Don't Edit the Human Gene Line | Nature | 26 March 2015 | | | 4 November 2015 | ]
[xii]

[Medical Journal Article | Junjiu Huang et al. | CRISPR/Cas9- Mediated Gene Editing in Human Tripronuclear Zygotes | Protein & Cell
| 18 April 2015 | | | 4 November 2015 | ]

6

DECLASSIFIED BY DNI GABBARD ON 18 JUNE 2026

From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
Attachments:

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 1:42 PM

Question on yesterday's Vanity Fair article
Secret Warnings About Wuhan Research Predated the Pandemic _ Vanity Fair.pdf

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First, Happy Thanksgiving! I realize you are probably going to get a lot of questions about the piece that ran in Vanity Fair
yesterday, and I hate to add to your workload, but I have a few questions on how the piece characterized DOE’s position
on COVID-O over the last few years. I realize that whoever leaked to the reporter probably got their details wrong, and I
think I know the answer to some of these questions, but I want to be prepared to answer anything that comes down
from the ODNI FO next week.


The piece claims that in mid-2019, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told a NIAID official that the
coronavirus research the US was helping to fund at the WIV risked being misappropriated for military purposes.
Do you know if this warning actually happened and, if so, what it was based on? I know that there were
concerns over WIV’s coronavirus research prior to the pandemic, but my recollection is that this concern was
over biosafety issues, not over the possibility that the research could be used for military purposes. To the best
of my knowledge, nobody in the IC was worried about that in mid-2019…and I know of no assessments
suggesting anyone is worried about it today.



The piece also states that Brouillette in October 2020 told Fauci that DOE scientists had found evidence
suggesting that the pandemic had originated at the WIV. Do you know if this actually happened and, if so, what
the statement is based on? It is inconsistent with everything I’ve seen from DOE.



The piece states that “…DOE scientists, using an array of advanced tools and working out of several different
labs, including Lawrence Livermore, Argonne, and Oak Ridge, could not rule out the possibility that the virus’s
sequence had been engineered.” While the statement is true on its face that neither DOE nor any IC agency has
“ruled out” anything regarding COVID-O, the implication here is that there is a significant number of DOE
scientists across multiple labs who think SARS-CoV-2 was engineered. Is this true?



With regard to DOE’s early 2023 assessment that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory-associated
incident, the piece states that DOE “…had long been more confident in its scientific analysis, and only later
became more comfortable with the intelligence supporting it.” The next sentence indicates that DOE’s
assessment was based on “…new intelligence related to a coronavirus variant being studied by China’s Center
for Disease Control in Wuhan.” These statements are wildly inconsistent with the earlier c laim that at least some
DOE scientists apparently believe SARs-CoV-2 was genetically engineered. I’m curious if you have any
explanation for these mutually exclusive statements?
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I appreciate any insight you can provide to the above questions and any thoughts on the piece itself. Thanks! –

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RE: Recent (and upcoming) press on COVID Origins
Australian Weekend Magazine_COVID.docx
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WORD version of the Australian article on COVID-O. A lot of what’s in here has already been reported in other press
pieces, but I highlighted some of the more interesting passages. The biggest deal is Kadlec’s claim that the pandemic
arose from the vaccine research AMMS scientists
was doing in fall 2019. This was the theory he pushed
during his HELP study and that we tried to tell him multiple times was incorrect. Another interesting tidbit is that a
“relative of
is in the US and
claims that FBI has interviewed them at least twice regarding COVID-O. This
is
They have never said
was
interviewed for COVID-O.
also claims that WIV had 22,000 viruses…which is just insane.
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To: Morgan Muir-DNIMichael L. Collins-DNICc:
Subject: Recent (and upcoming) press on COVID Origins

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I wanted to flag three recent press pieces that have been published over the last week on COVID-Origins, all of which
talk about the IC’s investigation.
The first piece is an article that ran in Vanity Fair last week. It’s ostensibly on the debate over the utility in doing socalled “gain of function” research but focuses a lot on what the author describes as warnings DOE provided to the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and its parent organization, the National Institutes of Health
on the nature of research being conducted at the WIV. In particular, the piece alleges that:
 …then Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette in mid-2019 told a NIAID official that the coronavirus research
the US was helping to fund at the WIV risked being misappropriated for military purposes.
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



…Brouillette in October 2020 told Fauci that DOE scientists had found evidence suggesting that the pandemic
had originated at the WIV
…DOE scientists, using an array of advanced tools and working out of several different labs, including Lawrence
Livermore, Argonne, and Oak Ridge, could not rule out the possibility that the virus’s sequence had been
engineered.
…and that, in regard to DOE’s early 2023 assessment that the pandemic was the result of a laboratoryassociated incident, that DOE “…had long been more confident in its scientific analysis, and only later became
more comfortable with the intelligence supporting it.”

Much of these statement appear to be garbs…by the sources the reporter spoke to and possibly even by Brouillette for
his alleged statements. Nobody in the IC was or has ever been worried about the PLA misappropriating the WIV’s
coronavirus research…certainly not in mid-2019. DOE did not assess a lab-associated cause of the pandemic until early
this year; it seems to me that Brouillette’s alleged claim that DOE came to this assessment by late 2020 was probably a
reference to a May 2020 DOE (LLNL) paper that simply assessed the necessary conditions for a lab leak were present at
the WIV.
The second attachment is a piece that ran in Sky News today by
claiming that former SFG director
had an inappropriate relationship with the WHO and unduly influenced the IC’s assessments on COVID
origins. This article, which appears to be heavily based on statements provided to Sky News by former Acting Assistant
Secretary of State of the Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance Bureau
is filled with factual
inaccuracies. The one piece of evidence it cites to justify the claim she influenced the IC is a recording of a meeting
between AVC and State/INR officials and outside experts in which
questioned the veracity of a Bayesian
analysis conducted by
. Her comment was perfectly reasonable; lots of people (including me) have major
issues with
analysis. Regardless, this happened when she was still at INR. She had almost nothing to do with the
90-day study.
The third piece is a related article published today in The Australian, also by
in which former DHS Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response Bob Kadlec claims that he initially downplayed the lab leak scenario in the
early days of the pandemic to encourage cooperation with China. This is a pretty interesting statement coming from
Kadlec, who after he left the Trump Administration was the lead Republican staffer on the Senate HELP committee and
the main driver behind that committee’s “Muddy Waters” investigation into COVID origins.
has a new documentary on COVID origins set to run tonight/tomorrow in which she promises to reveal more
ways in which the US government, and ODNI in particular, has covered up the real lab-related origins of the pandemic.

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with CIA
26 Sept Letter from Rep Wenstrup.pdf

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Thanks CBD for pulling this together so quickly at DA FO request. Record copy.
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The various press articles that are coming out are probably drawn from the 26 September letter from the Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (attached). We wanted to provide context from our records related to
claims that were made.
On 4 June 2021, WCP/DAD, WCP/CBD Chief of Analysis, a WCP/CBD analyst, an EAPMC analyst, CIA COO
and
NSC officials met with Dr. Fauci over a SVTC for about 40 minutes. The NSC’s Global Health Security & Biodefense section
facilitated the briefing. The WCP/CBD analyst briefed the key points of the 4 May 2021
. WCPMC/CBD has no record of Dr. Fauci coming to CIA headquarters to
discuss the origins of COVID-19.



During this SVTC, Dr. Fauci offered thoughts related to certain points the CBD analyst raised from the
including China’s pangolin research, early illnesses detected at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, single- versus
multi-lineage evolution of the virus, and China’s early epidemiological mistakes.
Dr. Fauci recommended contacting a group of US scientists who closely follow this issue, including some WCP
had already met with or planned to meet with.
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Please let us know of additional questions.
Thank you,

CIA/WCPMC/Deputy Chief Analysis

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MARIA BARTIROMO», FOX NEWS ANCHOR:
And that's South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem with me last week on this program with some disturbing commentary,
communist China still controlling America's supply of medicine four years after the outbreak of COVID-19 from a lab in
Wuhan that has killed more than 1.1 million Americans so far.
The CCP has yet to provide evidence on how that deadly virus originated and explain its cover-up that followed. Next
month, Dr. Anthony Fauci is set to testify for two days before the House on the origins of COVID-19 and his handling of
the pandemic, where Republicans are expected to grill him on overseeing funding of gain-of-function research at the
Wuhan lab, as well as discrediting the theory the virus originated from a lab leak.
Joining me right now is Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. He is vowing to hold hearings on the origins of COVID in the Upper
Chamber if Republicans retake control next year. Senator Paul is also the author of the new book "Deception: The Great
COVID Cover-Up," available right now.
Senator, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY):
Thank you, Maria.
«BARTIROMO»:
Well, you have been an incredible truth-teller throughout all of this, and you have studied all of this now for several
years.
What can you tell us about what you have learned, what you have taken away from the entire COVID experience?
PAUL:
Well, the problem is, is that the Chinese have destroyed any kind of reputation they had.

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I mean, we can no longer believe any kind of pronouncements from them, which makes us suspicious. Right now, there's
a host of disease affecting young people, respiratory disease and pneumonia, in China, and they tell us, well, there's
nothing to see here.
And maybe that's true, but they have destroyed any kind of foundation we had in trusting them, and they still haven't
come clean. In early 2020, when COVID came out, they said, oh, we're not having human-to-human transmission, and
we don't seem to be having an extraordinary amount of flooding in the hospitals or deaths.
All of that was untrue, and they knew for at least three or four weeks. They also knew the sequence of the virus, and
they kept that secret as well. I think they also knew that three of their workers got sick at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology in November 2019. I think they knew all of this.
And I think they absolutely know it now, and the only way they can restore trust is to own up to it. Look, I don't blame
them completely for this. I think it was an accident, but cover-up is not an accident. If they were to come clean and say,
we're punishing the scientists who did what they weren't supposed to, I think then that we could restore some trust.
But, right now, we have really no trust with the Chinese government.

«BARTIROMO»:
Well, what about the accountability here, and why the Biden administration does not push for it?
I mean, right now, as we speak, there are American investors continuing to underwrite the CCP by buying those
companies that are tied to the Chinese military. It seems this administration is not willing to pull the economic lever, and
that is shut off the capital markets to Chinese communist companies that may have been involved in that cover-up or
tied to the military.
PAUL:
Well, we still continue to fight the Biden administration every day just for unclassified information, and they resist at
every turn.
We have had to basically withhold nominees and withhold legislation to try to get anything from the Biden
administration. And I'm not sure what it is. Either it's sympathy or believing that relations with China are so important
that the truth can be obscured.
But there's also a certain amount of culpability in the Biden administration throughout several different departments,
USAID, NIH, HHS. They're withholding documents because they funded the lab in Wuhan, not just once, not just twice,
but for a decade they were funding.
And we have Anthony Fauci on record as saying that, even if a pandemic occurs, even if a gain-of-function research
infects a scientist and a pandemic occurs, that the knowledge would be worth the risk. And I think most people who had
a loved one die from COVID either here or around the world would disagree and think Anthony Fauci made a disastrous
judgment call.
But he also took the research, and it didn't go before the normal scrutiny. There's a safety committee that was supposed
to review this, and Anthony Fauci allowed this research to be done at his signature, at his conclusion, at his approval
without the approval of the safety committee.
And this -- for this, he really should go down in history perhaps as one of the worst people in public office ever and
responsible for probably more deaths than other -- any other individual in the medical world.
«BARTIROMO»:
Well, I mean, there was so much censorship of so much information that was vital for Americans to see and understand
about COVID and about the vaccines, but they censored it.
Can we even trust health officials in this government?
PAUL:
Well, it was directed explicitly by him. We go over this in the book, because he commissioned scientists who were saying
in private that they thought it was a manipulative virus, manipulated a lab and came from a lab.
He convinced them in public to say the opposite. He commissioned and edited a paper that said that absolutely this did
not come from a lab, while, privately, all of these same scientists were saying, in all likelihood, it did come from a lab.
So, there really was an orchestrated cover-up on this. We also now know that he was visiting the CIA in early 2020. We
know that the CIA scientists, seven of them, voted six to one to say it came from the lab, and then they were reversed by
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superiors. We need to know whether Anthony Fauci influenced the superiors, or perhaps the opposite. Did the CIA
influence Anthony Fauci?
But we also need to know how often he was visiting and what he was there for. Our understanding is that he wasn't
recorded on visitor logs, but he was appearing frequently at the CIA. You have to realize that he was not a scientist in
charge of a cure for cancer. He was also in charge of a lot of bioweapons money and in charge of a lot of things that had
dual use.
And they won't reveal any of this to us. They had weekly meetings on dangerous dual-use research concerns and gainof-function, and not one item of any of those meetings has been released to us, despite us asking for it for over three
years.
«BARTIROMO»:
Do you believe COVID was a bioweapon?
PAUL:
I think that it was probably developed for a vaccine. I think they developed a coronavirus. They inserted this cleavage
site in to make it more infectious to humans, and then they had a vaccine very early on, because I think they were
developing a vaccine against COVID, and then COVID got out.
«BARTIROMO»:
Yes.
PAUL:
But the interesting thing is the scientist, Dr. Zo Yusin [ph], who developed it, died mysteriously two months after the
development of the virus. He fell from a tall building in Beijing. And there's a lot of questions as to the circumstances of
his death.
«BARTIROMO»:
Wow. I did not realize that, that he died from a tall building in Beijing. That's incredible.
Let me switch gears, ask you about the supplemental package. You all are leaving for the holidays next week. But you're
right now debating this $100 billion supplemental package that Joe Biden wants, money sent to Ukraine, if you're going
to send money to Israel.
And the Republicans so far have dug in, saying, we want policy changes at the border. Where is this going?
PAUL:
We don't have the money.
And the biggest threat -- while I agree the border should be secured, an even bigger threat is to the dollar and to our
currency. I follow Jim Grant. I think he's one of the smartest guys out there looking at the economy and the Fed. He
predicted a lot of the things that happened in 2008, when we had the housing bubble burst.
He thinks we're due for interest rates, high interest rates, for a long period of time, but we're accumulating debt at a
trillion dollars every three months now. This is an extraordinary thing. And interest rates are now becoming the highest
or one of the largest items in our budget.
So, really, people can talk about wanting to help other countries. We don't have the money. It has to be printed up. It's
destroying our currency. And it's why it costs more to go to the grocery store to buy your groceries. We can't allow this
to happen.
There is a possibility we could go too far with this, and we could have a cataclysmic economic downturn, recession,
depression, destruction of the currency.
«BARTIROMO»:
Wow.
PAUL:
I know that sounds over the top, but that's what I'm worried about, because we're accumulating debt so fast.
5

«BARTIROMO»:
Well, I agree with you about Jim Grant. Jim Grant is a regular of mine on "Mornings With Maria" over on the FOX
Business Network. And he's been sounding the alarm about all of this debt for a long time.
But you have got a package at hand, and you have got a vote on this coming up. Where is this going? Is -- are you guys
going to go to the holiday and not send any money to Ukraine? What do you expect this -- to happen? How does this
play out, rather? Pardon me.
PAUL:
My hope is that Speaker Johnson will stick to his word.
He said Israel aid would be separate and paid for. He immediately voted for it, and the House passed it, and they paid for
it by taking money away from the IRS. I hope he stands by his word. I think he has an enormous leverage, if he will use it.
Now, he's getting pushed by all the establishment Republicans, particularly on the Senate side. He's being pushed to put
all the aid together with Ukraine. I think, if he keeps it separate and keeps it paid for, I think that he will win the day,
ultimately. But he needs to realize he has all the power, if he will stay where he is and not capitulate.
«BARTIROMO»:
All right, Senator, we will be watching all of that.
Thank you again for being a truth-teller in all of these health issues.
PAUL:
Thank you.
«BARTIROMO»:
We appreciate your time this morning, sir.
Thank you, Senator Rand Paul, for joining us.

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Morgan Muir-DNIFriday, September 27, 2024 2:39 PM
Michael L. Collins-DNI-;

Cc:
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RE: Readout of HPSCI COVID Origins briefing

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Thanks. That seems about as good as it gets these days.
intervention tracks with my recollection as well.
Let me know if we don’t hear back from FBI.
M
From:
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2024 2:26 PM
To: Michael L. Collins-DNICc:
Subject: Readout of HPSCI COVID Origins briefing

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Yesterday, the HPSCI Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee had a closed IC briefing/hearing (it was on the
record) on COVID origins. I was the lead briefer, with speakers from CIA, DIA/NCMI, FBI, and DOE. Subcommittee Chair
Wenstrup and Ranking Member Gomez attended, along with Reps Jackson and Fitzpatrick.
This HPSCI briefing went a lot better than the one I led in September 2021 (my readout of that below). Rep
Wenstrup began his opening statement by pointing out that the last time he was briefed on this issue the IC refused to
answer his simple questions…which was specifically directed at me (and a gross mischaracterization of what happened
three years ago). But then he dropped the issue and moved on. In fact, the briefing was remarkably nonconfrontational
(or at least no more so than usual) considering the tone of the COVID-O briefings held by Wenstrup’s other
subcommittee, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which have been decidedly anti anyone not
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holding the lab leak theory. To be fair, Wenstrup, Jackson, and Fitzpatrick all pushed back on any response to their
questions that didn’t support the lab leak narrative…but Wenstrup and Jackson were both polite about it (Fitzpatrick
was not, but left after about 20 minutes) and even went out of their way to express their appreciation for all of the IC’s
work on the issue.
Things did a tad heated when Wenstrup asked NCMI about a “white paper” some of their analysts did in 2020 in
response to the “Proximal Origins” paper that has been the source of so much angst. The authors of that “white paper”
felt that their conclusions were ignored by broader DIA and ODNI leadership and testified to this fact in Wenstrup’s
other subcommittee. The NCMI rep seemed unprepared for the question (I don’t know why…it seemed obvious to me
that they would be asked about it), which annoyed Wenstrup. He also elliptically asked CIA about reports that their
analysts shifted from lab to undecided. This was in reference to another “whistleblower” who testified to his other
subcommittee that CIA paid its analysts to not make the lab leak call.
, who was back-benching his WCPMC
briefer, jumped in and explained that he made the call to stop the shift to lab because
had come in the day
before they were ready to publish which made them back off the call.
blank if they had interviewed

One potential problem did come up related to FBI. Wenstrup asked the FBI briefer point

He also asked if any information
informed FBI’s assessment. The FBI rep replied that they had interviewed
on COVID origins and that the information
did inform their assessments. The problem here is that we know
had not been
interviewed by FBI until late June 2021 (outside of a non-related interview in 2010)…three months after FBI made their
origins call. We also know that at that interview
said nothing about COVID origins. If they interviewed
about COVID-O it has not been disseminated, as far as I can tell. Meaning: FBI has either been withholding information
from the rest of the IC, or they provided inaccurate information on the record yesterday. I sent a note to the briefer this
morning requesting follow-up, but she has not responded.
Thanks! –
From:
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2021 3:50 PM
To:
Morgan Muir-DNISubject: Readout of contentious HPSCI COVID Origins briefing

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and I, along with three reps from NCPC and
from OLA, briefed the HPSCI this morning on the COVID
Origins assessment. It did not go well. After Opening remarks from Reps Schiff and Nunes, I started off with prepared
remarks that went about 10 minutes, going over the processes involved in the 90-day study and then highlighting the
key takeaways. Rep Schiff asked a couple of easy questions and then turned it over to Rep Nunes, who yielded his time
to Rep. Wenstrup. Then everything went downhill.
Rep Wenstrup spent the first big chunk of his time identifying a number of open source documents that he wanted read
into the record (which was agreed to), in particular papers on the threat of SARS as a bioterror weapon (from 2005),
statements Fauci made on the general idea of gain of function research back in 2012,
work on chimeric
viruses in 2015, and similar stuff. After quite a while of talking he finally started to ask questions. They mostly centered
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on the names of the experts the IC reached out to on COVID origins. I told him that I was unable to reveal the names of
the experts we reach out to. Which is also exactly what I told the staffers during the pre- briefing we did on Tuesday. Rep
Wenstrup even acknowledged before he asked the first time that he knew what my response would be but was going to
ask anyway. He was, to put it mildly, not happy with my answer. In fact, he seemed pretty outraged. After that, it was
more of the same. Every single minority member who asked questions spent the first two- three minutes of their allotted
five minutes expressing outrage and disdain over my behavior. One, not sure who because this was all a blur, even said
“shame on you.” At one point, a member turned his time back to Rep Wenstrup who went through a long list of names
of “experts” (air quotes because the expertise of some he named is iffy in my mind) and asked me if anyone in the IC had
consulted with them…apparently because he wanted me to be on the record each time saying “I am not going to
comment on that.” I repeatedly tried to explain that IC policy was to not reveal the names of the experts we reached out
to for source protection reasons, which just seem to enrage then all even more. Several of the minority members
claimed that they had been staunch defenders of the IC in the past but now “will not have your back.” I heard a lot of
“nobody has ever come in here and refused to answer our questions” and the comments/question got heated on their
end and were pretty over the top. Several times I tried to answer a question only to be interrupted by whoever asked
the question and a couple even said something along the lines of “I don’t want to hear that ‘it’s against policy’ crap.”
Not to pick on the minority members, some of the majority members also were not pleased with the briefing. Rep.
Speier seemed annoyed that our assessment focused too much on
and wanted us to agree to talk to
one of her constituents who was in Wuhan in November of 2019 on a riverboat cruise (I kid you not). Her time ran out
before she asked that and she didn’t press the issue. Rep Krishnamoorthi also expressed surprise and disappointment
over my refusal to identify the experts and said it made us (the IC) “look bad.”
It seemed clear to me that few if any of the members actually read the Updated Assessment…or were paying attention
to my prepared remarks. One of the minority members (I can’t remember which) challenged me to identify anything
new that I had mentioned up to that point that was not in open sources. That question frankly baffled me, but I pointed
out that I had literally just talked about
WIV researchers who were reportedly sick in the Fall of 2019.
Members from both parties seemed surprised and confused that FBI came to a different conclusion than other IC
agencies. More than one asked me if FBI had access to information that they had not shared with the IC, and one
member (I think it was Rep Carson) asked me and
if we thought FBI was an equal and honest partner in the
processes (despite some of our issues with FBI, we both stated “yes”). Nobody seemed to understand what “low
confidence” means; even after I explained multiple times that low confidence meant that we had gaps in our
collection/reporting on issues (and went into specific details in a few cases) I got the same confused questions about
confidence levels.
With regard to the minority members question on experts, I think this was a set-up. They were looking for a reason to
distance themselves from the Updated Assessment and that was the issue they chose. Again, they knew we were not
going to name the experts because this came up at the pre-brief Tuesday. And at no time during that call did any of the
minority staffers indicate that this was going to be a problem It’s actually kind of laughable, because every expert they
named was consulted by the IC. Maybe I could have explained the reason we weren’t going to provide the names in a
way that would have resulted in less vitriol…but I doubt it.
Anyway, I would expect the DNI to receive angry letters from the Hill calling my professionalism into question and
demanding that the IC name names. And maybe that I be fired.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2021 9:31 AM
FW: Readout of Fauci briefing
fauci readout.ida.docx

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Chief of Analysis, Chemical Biological Department
Weapons and Counterproliferation Mission Center

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Subject: Readout of Fauci briefing

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Hi All,
Attached and pasted below you’ll find a readout of the Dr. Fauci briefing. There was clearly a bit of a disconnect with
the NSC about the scope of the briefing, but I was in touch with
today via email who expressed interest in a
second follow-on briefing for Fauci in person. He provided a few promising POCs for DA outreach—including Andersen
at Scripps who we are meeting, with DTIC, next week. Dr. Fauci was also interested, and presumably not tracking, the
specific pangolin coronavirus research that the WIV was doing. You’ll see this reflected in a WCP update too.
Happy to answer any questions.
Best,

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