{"id":14894,"date":"2026-05-25T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=14894"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:08:21","slug":"cia-whistleblower-james-erdman-reveals-anthony-fauci-influenced-covid-origins-intel-probe-as-part-of-lab-leak-cover-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=14894","title":{"rendered":"CIA whistleblower James Erdman reveals Anthony Fauci \u2018influenced\u2019 COVID origins intel probe as part of lab leak \u2018cover-up\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Josh Christenson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 A CIA whistleblower appeared publicly for the first time Wednesday to testify to a Senate panel that Dr. Anthony Fauci improperly \u201cinfluenced\u201d intelligence analyses about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic  \u2014<\/strong>   to downplay findings that it most likely resulted from a laboratory accident in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special operations officer James Erdman III delivered his testimony about the wide-ranging \u201ccover-up\u201d after being subpoenaed by the Senate Homeland Security Committee \u2014 and against his own agency\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDr. Fauci\u2019s role in the cover-up was intentional,\u201d Erdman testified, saying the then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) meddled in COVID origins analyses by providing \u201ca conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public health officials and scientists\u201d to the US Intelligence Community (IC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those included several scientists who joined a February 2020 teleconference that ultimately produced a widely-discredited scientific paper, \u201cThe proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,\u201d downplaying the lab leak theory<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, Erdman noted: \u201cThe CIA and DNI analytic managers responsible for examining the origin of COVID made decisions inconsistent with the conclusions of subject matter experts and analytical tradecraft, consistently favoring the theory of zoonosis or natural origin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdman, who has served at the CIA since 2013, has been reviewing the IC\u2019s handling of\u00a0its COVID origins probe as part of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s Director\u2019s Initiatives Group (DIG) from March 2025 to April 2026.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He testified that Fauci twice inserted himself into IC deliberations about the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 \u2014 once on Feb. 3, 2020, and again on June 4, 2021 \u2014 to stoke a natural origins \u201cnarrative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a June 2021 email exchange, Erdman recounted how the leader of a 90-day IC review of COVID origins dismissed concerns from a senior analyst about Fauci\u2019s decision to \u201cinject himself\u201d into the process as a \u201csubject matter expert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CIA officer noted that the NIAID director had publicly denied having expertise on coronaviruses while privately attempting to steer the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, another CIA assessment also refused to state one way or another whether the coronavirus pandemic originated in a lab leak or spilled over naturally from animals to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdman denied reports, however, that some analysts were bribed to alter those findings<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSix of the seven technical experts say, \u2018Yep, we still think it\u2019s a lab leak,’\u201d he characterized the deliberations. \u201cAnd they were sticking to their guns. Management changed the analytic line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2023 assessment stated: \u201cWe may never precisely know the origin of SARS-CoV-2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Precisely\u2019 is not a term analysts use,\u201d Erdman clarified Wednesday. \u201cThey use words like \u2018low confidence,\u2019 \u2018medium confidence.\u2019 \u2018Precisely\u2019 is a word you use when you want to deliberately end discussion.\u201d

Those analysts received Exceptional Performance Awards of roughly $1,500 each, the witness said, but not in direct exchange for the assessment\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were no bribes,\u201d Erdman emphasized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also accused the IC of withholding as many as 2,000 pages of classified material on COVID origins \u2014 in violation of a 2023 law signed by former President Joe Biden ordering disclosures to the American public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While conducting the review with Gabbard\u2019s office, Erdman alleged that the CIA \u201cillegally monitored\u201d the phones and computers of DIG personnel as well as other whistleblowers.109<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe CIA refused to provide information necessary to understand why analytic standards at the CIA were violated,\u201d he said.

\u201cThese were Americans being spied upon illegally while executing duties directed by the president and under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdman came forward \u201cat great personal risk\u201d because \u201cthe truth was being buried,\u201d Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday of the \u201cdecorated officer with decades of intelligence and national security experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the hearing concluded, a CIA spokeswoman blasted Paul\u2019s committee for having engaged in \u201cpolitical theater\u201d by compelling Erdman\u2019s testimony, given that the agency last year assessed a lab leak as the most likely explanation for the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Committee acted in bad faith by subpoenaing an Agency officer for testimony today without notifying CIA, despite having already obtained closed-door testimony from the individual previously,\u201d said CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe witness testifying today is not appearing as a whistleblower in pursuit of the truth, but instead in response to the subpoena issued by Chairman Paul,\u201d she added.

\u201cThis proceeding amounts to nothing more than dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing. As the CIA has already assessed, COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak, and efforts to undermine that conclusion are disingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has called for a high-level congressional probe of the intelligence agencies regarding COVID, publicly demanded an apology from CIA Director John Ratcliffe after reading the statement aloud during the hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Josh Christenson WASHINGTON \u2014 A CIA whistleblower appeared publicly for the first time Wednesday to testify to a Senate panel that Dr. Anthony Fauci improperly \u201cinfluenced\u201d intelligence analyses about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1227,272,445,446,651],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fauci","category-lab-leak","category-policies-politics","category-policy","category-wuhan-labs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14898,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894\/revisions\/14898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}