The following is fromJudicial Watch.

Judicial Watch announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)lawsuitagainst the US Dept. of Defense seeking records about gain-of-function research proposals submitted before the Covid-19 outbreak.

The lawsuit,Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:26-cv-00433), was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) allegedly failed to respond to a Nov. 7, 2025 FOIA request.

The Biological Technologies Office waslaunchedin 2014 by DARPA and says its programs “push the leading edge of science” and sometimes present new ethical, legal, or social challenges raised by emerging biological technologies.

The issue has drawn scrutiny in Congress. In April 2024, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sentlettersto several agencies seeking information about the DEFUSE project, a 2018 grant proposal led by EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The DEFUSE proposal was submitted to DARPA under the PREventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT) program and proposed inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus. According to the committee, the proposed virus would have been “shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), then ranking member of the committee, said at least 15 federal agencies were aware early in the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology had sought federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically similar to Covid-19.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the lawsuit aims to uncover more information about possible research proposals before the pandemic.

“Gain-of-function proposals likely were active in the Defense Department’s pipeline prior to the pandemic. Our lawsuit intends to find out what these proposals entailed.”

Judicial Watch says it has filed numerous FOIA lawsuits seeking government records related to Covid-19 research, pandemic policies, and communications among federal agencies about the origins of the virus.

Source: Sharyl Attkisson