US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released newly declassified documents on Thursday regarding the origins of COVID-19, claiming they reveal links between US-funded research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the actions of former top US health official Anthony Fauci.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused extraordinary hardship and pain for millions of Americans and countless people around the world. After years of lies, censorship, and cover-ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability,” Gabbard said in a statement released along with the documents.
She said the documents include internal communications, whistleblower claims and intelligence materials related to investigations into the origins of the pandemic. Gabbard also alleged that Fauci “lied to Congress under oath in 2024.”
The director alleged that, while serving as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci participated in discussions regarding intelligence reviews on the origins of COVID-19, maintained contact with intelligence officials during key stages of the review process, and oversaw funding that supported research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The US agency further claimed that some of the communications contradict Fauci’s testimony before Congress in 2024.
Fauci has repeatedly denied accusations that he misled lawmakers or concealed the origins of COVID-19, calling the claims “absurd” during a congressional hearing in June 2024.
He has also stated that both natural origins and a laboratory accident remain possible explanations for the emergence of the virus, although he believes that existing evidence leans more towards natural transmission, but without a definitive conclusion.
US intelligence agencies have not reached a firm conclusion whether the virus originated in a laboratory or through natural transmission, and the newly released documents have not been independently verified.
COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020.
The pandemic caused millions of deaths worldwide and brought major health, economic and social consequences.
The origin of the virus remains under investigation, as scientific and intelligence assessments continue to examine both the natural and laboratory-related origin scenarios, without yet reaching a final conclusion. /Telegraph/