The former head of the Trump administration's investigation into COVID-19's origins told Congress today that the CIA actively frustrated his work by withholding records, retaliating against agency personnel who cooperated with the investigation, and surveilling investigators' computer and phone usage and contact with whistleblowers.
"These were Americans being spied upon illegally while executing duties directed by the president and under the director of National Intelligence," James Erdman III, a current CIA officer who led the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) investigation into COVID's origins, told the Senate's Homeland Security Committee today.
Additionally, Erdman claimed that the CIA had suppressed its own analysts' assessment that COVID came from a lab leak and retaliated against them when they stuck to this conclusion.
In January 2025, the CIA, now helmed by new Trump-appointed director John Ratcliffe, said publicly that it now assessed a lab leak as the most likely origin point for COVID. Previously, the agency had been noncommittal.
Under the Biden administration, ODNI released two unclassified summaries of the intelligence community's assessment of the pandemic's origins. Both stated that four agencies assessed a natural origin of COVID as most likely, while another one assessed that a lab leak was a more likely cause of the pandemic. Three agencies couldn't say whether a lab leak or natural origin was more likely.
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