Image: Screenshot (Senate Hearing, May 13, 2026)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) amplified his efforts today to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci accountable for “lying to Congress” about gain-of-function research, with a crucial hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
In an X post from May 12, Fox News Congressional correspondent Bill Melugin stated that Paul informed him “the COVID-19 whistleblower who will testify publicly [and] in person before his committee tomorrow morning is an active CIA employee.”
Although Melugin was not given a name, today’s hearing identified James Erdman III as the whistleblower. Erdman serves as a CIA Senior Operations Officer.
At 10 AM, Paul commenced the Senate hearing by stating, “For years, Americans were told to trust the experts, trust the agencies, trust the intelligence community, and trust the officials who assured us that they were following the science. But the evidence before the committee tells a very different story.”
He outlined a system in which a select group of officials, scientists, grant recipients, and intelligence advisors shifted between different agencies, meetings, and briefings. They assessed one another’s work, swayed each other’s conclusions, and subsequently presented these results to Congress and the public as though they had been developed independently.
“Only it was not independent; it was a circle, Paul explained. Essentially, he explained that the intelligence community compensates researchers to analyze studies and produce reports. He mentioned that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides funding for their grants, the CIA seeks their expertise and grants them access to classified data, and the National Academies are responsible for publishing their findings. Policy makers then cite the result as a consensus, and “at the center of the government side of this circle was Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
“For years,” he said, “Dr. Fauci was not merely a public health official speaking from the NIH. He had a long-standing relationship with the National Security and Intelligence apparatus on biological threats, dangerous pathogens, classified life sciences researches, pandemic preparedness, and COVID origins.”
Repeatedly, Paul said, documents reveal Fauci’s involvement in national security discussions that extended well beyond typical public health communication. During the COVID crisis, intelligence officials arranged for Dr. Fauci to review highly classified intelligence assessments that were restricted from being shared outside the White House compound.
“But how can Anthony Fauci objectively comment on a discussion of COVID origins when he approved the very funding that may have caused the pandemic virus?” Paul asked. “From the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci shaped the conclusions. Dozens of times, he referred to the idea that the pandemic originating in the lab was a conspiracy.”
Paul said that Fauci held “the now infamous” call on February 1, 2020. During that call, some scientists privately expressed serious doubts about a laboratory origin.
Concurrently, Fauci collaborated with the National Academies on messaging regarding coronavirus origins. Paul said these individuals were not independent experts reaching a consensus; they were part of the same system designed to arrive at a predetermined conclusion.
Rand asserted that “the question is not whether the government may consult experts. The question is whether those experts were independent, whether conflicts were disclosed, whether dissenting views were preserved, whether the lab leak possibility was fairly evaluated, and whether Congress and the American people received the truth or a curated result.”
“When Congress asked these questions,” he said, “the government officials lied to our face. They classified the documents. They suppressed the information. They changed the definitions.” He also observed that, in 2023, there was a desire for Congress to be informed. During that year, John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, gave testimony before Congress, issuing a strong warning that a lab leak was the only explanation that had credible support from “intelligence, science, and common sense.” According to his testimony, CIA scientific analysts determined on several occasions between 2021 and 2023 that a laboratory leak was the most probable source of COVID-19.
After pledging to tell the truth to the committee, Erdman stated that he was in charge of the National Intelligence Director’s Initiatives Group, known as the DIG, from March 2025 until April 2026. “I was responsible for leading the DIG’s investigation into COVID origins, anomalous health incidents, and unidentified anomalous phenomena,” he shared.
According to him, “Intelligence community (IC) leaders and senior analysts downplayed the possibility that the COVID pandemic originated as a result of a lab incident.” Erdman admitted, “Motives are difficult to define given the scope of the DIG’s review,” but added, “Intentional or not, the IC’s actions resulted in a cover-up, wasted resources, and a failure to properly inform policymakers.”
He argued, “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 emergency use authorization mRNA products being mandated by the former administration.”
“Dr. Fauci’s role in the coverup was intentional,” Erdman disclosed. “Dr. Fauci influenced the analytical process and findings by leveraging his position to ensure the IC consulted with a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public health officials, and scientists.”
JUST NOW: CIA whistleblower confirms under oath that Dr. Anthony Fauci “INJECTED” himself into the intelligence community when they were about to confirm that COVID came from the Wuhan Lab
Then it “changed.” Imagine that.
“He injected himself into the IC.”
“As of August… pic.twitter.com/jXU1MHB6uh
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 13, 2026
Developing story. Check back for updates.
The post Just In: ‘Dr. Fauci’s Role Coverup was Intentional;’ CIA Whistleblower Testifies At Rand Paul’s Hearing on Government’s Long-Running Covid Cover-Up appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.