Declassified Documents Show Fauci Consulted on Early COVID-19 Origin Assessments by Intelligence Agencies

Jan. 31, 2020: Evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen contacted Fauci with concerns that SARS-CoV-2 could have been a genetically engineered virus. Fauci instructed Andersen to contact the FBI if he believed it could be a bioweapon.

Feb. 1, 2020: Fauci, NIH Director Francis Collins, and Jeremy Farrar of the British Wellcome Trust held a Zoom call with Andersen and colleagues. ” February 2020: Heavily redacted emails from Gabbard’s files indicate intelligence community officials ruled out the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 being a bioweapon.

March 6, 2020: Andersen contacted Fauci and Collins thanking them for their “advice and leadership” on the “Proximal Origin” paper. Collins instructed Fauci to ensure the two NIH officials “are appropriately not mentioned explicitly” in the credits for the paper. March 17, 2020: “Proximal Origin” was published in Nature Medicine.

March 20, 2020: Collins published an NIH director’s memo outlining a zoonotic origin of the virus. March 20-25, 2020: A former Department of Energy employee working for MITRE contacted intelligence community officials with concern about potential genetic engineering of the virus.

Internal emails cited the “Proximal Origin” paper and Collins’s memo as evidence not to further investigate the claims.

April 17, 2020: Fauci cited the “Proximal Origin” paper from the White House Coronavirus Task Force podium. In a private Slack channel after April 17, 2020, Andersen told colleagues he was still worried that “we also can’t fully rule out engineering” of the virus. Sept.

16, 2020: An intelligence community official stated in an email that the IC should defer purely technical questions on unclassified scientific research to others. May 11, 2021: Fauci told Sen. ” May 26, 2021: President Joe Biden ordered the intelligence community to publish a report within 90 days on the origins of the pandemic.

June 4, 2021: Fauci briefed the National Security Council on the origins of the virus and compiled a list of subject matter experts including Baric, Daszak, and Andersen. June 28, 2021: The intelligence community formally requested information on the virus for its report from the NIH and HHS. ” July 20, 2021: Fauci stated during a Senate hearing: “I have not lied before Congress.

I have never lied. Certainly not before Congress. ” Aug. 27, 2021: The director of national intelligence published a 1 1/2-page report stating the intelligence community believes the virus was not developed as a bioweapon and that most agencies “assess with low confidence” that the virus was not genetically engineered.

Aug. 13, 2021: A Marine Corps fellow with DARPA filed a whistleblower complaint with the agency’s inspector general regarding the DEFUSE proposal. ” Twelve days later, Fauci was contacted by the National Security Council to review the whistleblower complaint.

Aug. 16, 2021: A separate whistleblower within the intelligence community filed a complaint against Fauci for perjury following his May 11, 2021 Senate testimony. The intelligence community inspector general informed Congress of the complaint and sent it to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.