This article originally appeared onThe Defenderand was republished with permission.

Guest post byMichael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

ACIA whistleblowertoday told the U.S. Senate that Dr. Anthony Fauci intentionally helped cover up evidence showing that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory that worked with U.S.-funded scientists — some of whom were involved with gain-of-function research and coronaviruses months before the pandemic.

“Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional,” said James E. Erdman III, a senior operations officer for the CIA. Erdman testified during ahearingorganized by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Erdman, who worked for the federalDirector’s Initiatives Group(DIG) between March 2025 and April 2026, leading its investigation intoCOVID-19’s origins, said this position exposed him to evidence that Fauci, the CIA and other elements of the U.S. intelligence community actively covered up evidence of aCOVID-19 lab leak.

He said a “small circle” of scientists was involved in the cover-up and helped promote the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus had a zoonotic — or natural — origin. Fauci then referred investigators from various U.S. intelligence agencies leading an interagency probe into the virus’s origins to the same scientists, Erdman said.

Erdman said the scientists were linked togain-of-function research, which increases the virulence or transmissibility of viruses and is used invaccinedevelopment.

Erdman said the cover-up continues today and that CIA whistleblowers have faced retaliation from the agency. When asked if there is still resistance within the CIA to comply with legislation to declassify all COVID-19 origins documents, Erdman responded, “Yes.”

Erdman told lawmakers that public health policy “would have been very different had the American public been made aware that a virus from a lab in China was going to serve as the foundation for anEmergency Use AuthorizationmRNA product beingmandated by the former administration.”

Paul called the COVID-19 pandemic “one of the most consequential events of our lifetime.” The senator said that “to this day, the American people have never received a full accounting of where it [the virus] came from, what our government knew and why they had to fight their own government to find out.”

Source: The Vigilant Fox