The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is not fully cooperating with an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and potential government cover-up, according to a federal watchdog. Intelligence Community Inspector General Christopher Fox accused CIA Director John Ratcliffe in a June letter of failing to provide critical records needed to determine if the U.S. government engaged in a cover-up.
The watchdog is reviewing allegations that a team of analysts, dispatched by then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was hindered in their work. Fox also raised concerns about insufficient responses from Ratcliffe regarding claims that analysts were tracked and had communications with whistleblowers monitored.
Fox described it as "concerning" that the CIA director stated there was no evidence of "illegal monitoring" of analysts working with Gabbard on a special unit known as the Director's Initiatives Group. The Inspector General asserted that the CIA was not complying with federal law requiring coordination for oversight matters.
Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to whom the June 16 letter was sent, stated that "Americans deserve a full accounting of COVID-19’s origins and the Intelligence Community’s (IC) response, especially whether whistleblowers were unlawfully monitored." Grassley added, "it’s very concerning to me that entities within the Intelligence Community are obstructing the Inspector General’s honest efforts to perform a thorough investigation."
These accusations clash with public statements by Ratcliffe, who has called for transparency and previously supported the lab-leak theory for the virus's origin. However, CIA special operations officer James Erdman III testified to Congress on May 13 that the U.S. Intelligence Community improperly influenced assessments of COVID origins and that analysts were "illegally monitored."
Erdman claimed that management altered an analytic line that favored the lab-leak hypothesis, with six of seven technical experts believing it remained the most probable cause. He also testified that officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci influenced intelligence analyses to favor a natural origin.
Previous assessments from the FBI and the Energy Department had already leaned towards a lab leak. A January 2025 CIA assessment, declassified by Ratcliffe, became the third agency to support the lab leak theory, though Erdman's testimony suggests this position was influenced.
Erdman noted that as early as May 2020, scientific papers supporting the lab leak theory were circulating within the IC, but senior National Intelligence Council officers allowed Fauci to intervene as a subject-matter expert, overriding intelligence analysts.
A former IC intelligence analyst told The Post that analysts were "in lockstep with the WHO’s position, which was the same as the Chinese’s" and suggested that Fauci was not the only official who influenced work in favor of a zoonotic theory. This analyst also raised concerns about potential Chinese influence within the IC.
An April 22 assessment from the IC OIG, also obtained by The Post, indicated that Fox's office had received new allegations of "conflicts of interest" affecting past COVID intelligence products. The assessment concluded that "serious allegations regarding the integrity of U.S. Government personnel and processes related to the assessment of the origin of COVID-19" exist.