Republicans in Congress, particularly Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY), have investigated whether the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as a result of a lab leak, as opposed to China’s official narrative of an animal-to-human spillover event.

No Democrats participated in the hearing, which was called by Paul and the Republican majority. 

Much of the hearing revolved around Fauci’s role in developing the 2021 Intelligence Community Report, in which findings from multiple intelligence agencies were synthesized to yield slight but conflicting conclusions toward a lab-leak event.

Erdman said Fauci was indirectly involved in swaying the ultimate outcome of the 2021 Intelligence Community Report by providing a list of experts for the National Intelligence Council to consult in determining whether the virus originated in the lab or from a natural source. 

He said Fauci pointed the intelligence community toward subject matter experts who were biased toward the natural origin theory to downplay the possibility of a lab incident, adding that the report “was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci injecting himself into the IC.”

“Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional,” Erdman said. “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, health officials, and scientists.”

Erdman said Fauci intentionally swayed intelligence community officials toward discussions about the virus with virologists and epidemiologists in his orbit, including the authors of an influential paper published in 2020 in the Lancet that downplayed the credibility of a lab leak in the early stages of the outbreak.

Subsequent Senate and House investigations revealed that the authors of the Lancet paper initially believed the virus came from the Wuhan lab but changed their minds after participating in a Zoom call with Fauci and other leaders at the National Institutes of Health.

Erdman testified that he believed obscuring the origins of the virus had significant implications for the direction of pandemic-era policy, especially COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“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 an emergency use authorization mRNA products being mandated by the former administration,” Erdman said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) criticized Fauci’s involvement, saying the decline in public trust for federal health officials following the pandemic is a natural response to an orchestrated cover-up.

“It’s bad enough that he’s out there misleading the public behind the scenes,” Hawley said. “He’s trying to intervene to stop our own intelligence community, who are supposed to work for the public, from actually accurately assessing the evidence.”

Biosecurity, intelligence community, and conflicts of interest

Erdman and Republicans on the committee both criticized the close relationship between life science researchers and the intelligence community.

Paul said Fauci’s financial ties to gain-of-function research, the research process that makes viruses more dangerous, created a conflict of interest with his advisory role for the intelligence community.

Congressional investigations into the origins of COVID-19 have uncovered a series of grants that Fauci’s agency gave to researchers affiliated with the Wuhan lab to conduct gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

Although there is no proof that NIH funds are directly linked to the development of the coronavirus, Paul said Fauci “had a fiefdom” of researchers that he, as NIAID director, could manipulate to dissuade the idea of a lab leak by promising them research grant money.

Erdman said the intelligence community heavily relies upon counsel from NIH and National Academy of Science researchers on matters related to biosecurity and biodefense, including involving weapons of mass destruction.

But he said this creates significant security vulnerabilities, considering the openness with which the United States engages in co-publishing with Chinese researchers who have ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

“This is a national security crisis caused by the inability to provide real oversight,” Erdman said. “The systematic failures associated with muddled boundaries between biodefense and public health and an overly complex infrastructure have been exacerbated by documented efforts to circumvent oversight.”

CIA calls Paul’s hearing ‘dishonest political theater’

CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons told Fox News that Paul’s committee “acted in bad faith” by subpoenaing an active CIA operations officer to testify after he had already provided classified, closed-door testimony.

She said Erdman was not testifying “as a whistleblower in pursuit of the truth” but rather under threat of congressional action if he did not comply with the subpoena. 

“This proceeding amounts to nothing more than dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing,” Lyons said. “As the CIA has already assessed, COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak, and efforts to undermine that conclusion are disingenuous.” 

Erdman said during his public testimony that he recently finished his assignment at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and is back at the CIA. He told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that he and his superiors are talking about what is next.

FAUCI’S FORMER SENIOR ADVISER INDICTED ON CHARGES OF CONCEALING COVID-19 RESEARCH RECORDS

Erdman told the committee that current protections for intelligence community whistleblowers are insufficient. 

The ODNI did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.