Lawsuit accuses CIA of withholding possible evidence that its analysts took bribes to conceal lab origin of COVID-19

A new federal lawsuit accuses the CIA of withholding possible evidence that its analysts were paid to deep-six findings that the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic was a Chinese lab leak.

The lawsuit, filed Friday by the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project and obtained by the Daily Caller, suggests that just as the CIA has neglected to publicly provide congressional investigators with the information they requested, it has similarly failed to provide Heritage with a timely response.

What's the background?

A CIA whistleblower described as a "multi-decade, senior-level" official claimed in September that the agency bribed six analysts on its COVID Discovery Team to reject the theory that the COVID-19 virus initially spread as the result of a research-related leak at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology — a communist-controlled lab controversial for its dangerous experiments on coronviruses.

Blaze News previously noted that federal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed earlier this year that the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases, under former director Anthony Fauci, funded experiments at the WIV.

Millions among the dollars funneled from Fauci's agency to the WIV were mediated by Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, whose subcontractor Ben Hu — the lead on gain-of-function research on SARS-like coronaviruses — was among the patients zero at the lab and ostensibly among the very first infected in the world.

According to a Sept. 12 letter penned by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the CIA whistleblower revealed that at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the COVID Discovery Team "believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis."

The whistleblower indicated that "to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position."

The whistleblower's allegations were significant because a declassified report released in June by the director of national intelligence stated, "The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting."

In response to the whistleblower testimony, congressional lawmakers demanded that the CIA turn over all documents and communications pertaining to the COVID Discovery Team, its establishment, and its investigation of the origins of the virus, as well as all documents pertaining to members' pay history, by no later than Sept. 26.

Republican senators similarly wrote to CIA Director William Burns in early September demanding transparency on this issue.

The Heritage Foundation and Mike Howell of the Oversight Project then hit the agency with a Freedom of Information Act request to the same effect on Sept. 20.

The FOIA suit

Heritage indicated in its Friday complaint that the CIA did not ultimately comply with its September FOIA request regarding who allegedly "received monetary incentives to change their position on the origins of the virus."

The complaint asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the CIA to both "conduct a search or searches reasonably calculated to uncover all records responsive to Plaintiffs' FOIA Request" and to produce all non-exempt records inside 20 days of the court's order or "by such other date as the Court deems appropriate."

"The Biden administration has refused to be transparent with Congress and the American people over the origins of COVID-19," Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel for the Oversight Project, told the New York Post.

"A CIA whistleblower has made serious allegations that the agency bought off employees of the agency to further obstruct efforts to get to the truth of the virus's origins," continued Brosnan. "This obstruction cannot stand, and we're fighting in federal court to get to the bottom of this."

Fauci on the hot seat in 2024

It's not just America's spies whose feet are now being held to the fire.

Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is set to testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9.

The subcommittee noted on X that "thankfully, Dr. Fauci's retirement from public service does not shield him from Congressional oversight nor accountability to the American people."

The subcommittee further reminded the public that Fauci commissioned, edited, and gave final approval to the impactful March 2020 study published in the journal Nature, "The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2" — an oft-cited study whose authors expressed concerns in private about the "sh** show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release," making clear that their cause was "political."

Fauci repeatedly referenced this paper on the national stage, including once from the White House podium, to bolster the zoonotic origins theory ultimately entertained by the CIA team.

The subcommittee also highlighted how Fauci was cognizant of the dangerous gain-of-function research taking place in Wuhan but "did nothing to stop it or warn the American people."

The subcommittee failed to mention in its short list of Fauci's faux pas Wenstrup's late-September revelation that "according to information gathered by the Select Subcommittee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, played a role in the Central Intelligence Agency's review of the origins of COVID-19."

"The information provided suggests that Dr. Fauci was escorted into Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Headquarters — without a record of entry — and participated in the analysis to 'influence' the Agency’s review," continued the chairman.

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