A CIA officer who previously led the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 testified before Congress today, alleging that the agency actively hindered his investigation by withholding records, rewarding retaliation against personnel who cooperated with the probe, and monitoring investigators’ computer and phone usage along with their interactions with whistleblowers.
“These were Americans being spied upon illegally while executing duties directed by the president and under the director of National Intelligence,” James Erdman III, a current CIA officer who headed the ODNI review into COVID’s origins, told the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee today.
Additionally, Erdman asserted that the CIA suppressed its own analysts’ assessment that COVID originated from a lab leak and retaliated against those who adhered to that conclusion.
In January 2025, the CIA, now led by new Trump-appointed director John Ratcliffe, publicly announced that a lab leak was the most plausible origin for COVID. Previously, the agency had avoided making a firm determination.
During the Biden administration, the ODNI issued two unclassified summaries of the intelligence community’s assessment of the pandemic’s origins. Both indicated that four agencies judged a natural origin as most likely, while another agency considered a lab leak a more probable cause. Three agencies could not decide whether a lab leak or natural origin was more likely.
In his testimony today, Erdman contended that the IC’s initial reluctance to endorse a lab-leak conclusion stemmed from the influence of former COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci, who assembled lists of scientists for agencies to consult.
These scientists, Erdman said, specialized in the kind of gain-of-function research that plausibly contributed to the emergence of COVID at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and were therefore not impartial observers.
In 2023, Congress unanimously passed legislation requiring the ODNI to disclose the intelligence community’s findings on the origins of COVID. In response to that law, the Biden administration released a 9-page, partially redacted summary of already released intelligence.
Erdman stated in his testimony today that under its new director, Tulsi Gabbard, the ODNI is in the process of declassifying roughly 2,000 documents related to COVID’s origins, but that this work has been slowed by refusals from the CIA and the State Department to hand over requested materials.
He also claimed that the CIA dismissed a contractor one day after conversing with ODNI investigators.
“The deep state still resists this congressional mandate” to release documents on COVID’s origins, said Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), who chairs the Homeland Security committee, at today’s hearing.
Paul has long argued that a lab-leak origin for COVID is plausible. He has introduced legislation that would subject gain-of-function research proposals to more rigorous risk-benefit reviews by an independent panel.
The Trump administration also issued an executive order last year directing the release of a policy effectively banning gain-of-function research by September 2025. No such policy has been published to date.
During the hearing, Erdman contended that resistance to oversight from both intelligence agencies and public health officials was hindering the administration’s ability to implement new restrictions on gain-of-function research.
