Hearings to examine Whistleblower Testimony on COVID.

The COVID-nineteen pandemic was one of the most consequential events of our lifetime. And to this day, the American people have never received a full accounting of where it came from, what our government knew, and why they had to fight their own government to find out. Today, the committee will hear from an intelligence community whistleblower about these questions. The witness will testify that the CIA scientific analysts repeatedly concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19, and that those conclusions were buried, softened, or withheld from Congress while the public was told to trust a different story. 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. Today we will expose a system in which a small circle of officials, scientists, grantees, and intelligence advisors move from agencies to agency, meeting to meeting, briefing to briefing, reviewing one another's work and shaping one another's conclusions and presenting those conclusions to Congress, and the public as if they were independent conclusions. Only it was not independent, it was a circle. One part of that circle is a body most Americans have never heard of, the Biological Sciences Expert Group, known as BSEG, or the B group. BSEG operates under the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Its stated purpose is to give the intelligence community access to outside scientific experts on biological threats. Sounds reasonable. But not if those experts are not independent. For example, Dr. Ralph Baric collaborated with Drs. Zengli, Xi and Wuhan to create gain-of-function coronaviruses. But Dr. Baric was also part of BSEG and an active consultant to intelligence agencies on the origins of COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, Peter Daszak received hundreds of millions of dollars from the US government and worked with Dr. Xi also on these gain-of-function experiments. Daszak was even sent to China with the WHO to investigate the origins of COVID. So the very scientists that were commissioned to investigate COVID were, in some cases, the very scientists who were complicit in the origins of the gain-of-function experiments that may well have created COVID. In essence, the intelligence community pays researchers to review work and write papers. NIH funds their grants. The CIA then consults them and gives them access to classified information. The National Academies publish their work. Policymakers then cite the result as a consensus. But it's a circle. At the center of the government side of this circle was Doctor Anthony Fauci. For years, Doctor 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. Again and again, documents show him being brought into national security discussions far beyond ordinary public health messaging. During COVID, intelligence officials arranged for Dr. Fauci to review highly classified intelligence assessments that could not even be sent outside the White House complex. 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? From the outside of the p- outset of the pandemic, Doctor Fauci shaped the conclusions. Dozens of times he referred to the idea that the pandemic originating in the lab was a conspiracy that it was a conspiracy theory. Doctor Fauci convened the now infamous February first, twenty twenty call. Some scientists on that call privately raised serious concerns about a laboratory origin. Yet ironically, those same scientists later co-authored the proximal origin paper, which publicly dismissed the lab leak hypothesis. One author received a nine million dollar grant from Doctor Fauci's own agency, after he changed his opinion from lab leak on the private phone call to natural origin in public. At the same time, Doctor Fauci coordinated with the National Academies on Coronavirus Origins, and public-facing messaging. These were not independent experts reaching a consensus. They were part of the same machine, designed to reach the same conclusion. 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, government officials lied to our face. They classified the documents. They suppressed the information. They changed the definitions. They invoked sources and methods. They told Congress only what they wanted Congress to know. In twenty twenty three, John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence, testified before Congress with a stark warning. He said a lab leak was the only explanation credibly supported by intelligence science and common sense. He warned that partisan politics and analysts' disagreement with Trump administration policy, Trump derangement syndrome, had created illegitimate roadblocks to the truth. I agree. He said the COVID-nineteen Origin Act, which Congress passed unanimously, should finally make intelligence on COVID's origins public. I couldn't agree more. Despite a unanimously passed law, though, requiring the declassification of all information related to COVID origins, the deep states still resist this congressional mandate. Our witness today will explain what happened inside the CIA. According to his testimony, CIA's scientific analyst, concluded multiple times between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three that a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID-nineteen. Yet those conclusions never shaped the official narrative, never made the intelligence report. Congress was never told. It was not until after the twenty twenty four election that the outgoing Biden administration directed the CIA to issue an assessment, not because of new intelligence, but so officials could walk out of the door claiming there was nothing left to find. That is not analysis, that is a clean-up operation. This hearing is about more than one witness, one assessment, or one agency. It's about a federal apparatus that told the American people to trust the science, while hiding the machinery that shaped the science. It's about an intelligence community that relied on outside experts, whose conflicts were never disclosed. It's about public health officials with access to intelligence that Congress has struggled to obtain. It's about researchers and advisors cycling through grants, contracts, classified briefings, federal service and advisory committees, and presenting the results as independent, even though they weren't. The cover-up is not just about protecting one research grant, it's about protecting an entire network of labs, grants, intermediaries, and bureaucratic architecture. quietly engineered to outlast any moratorium, any congressional inquiry, and any election. After millions died, children lost years of learning, small businesses were destroyed, civil liberties were restricted, and dissenting Americans were censored and smeared. The government owes its people the evidence. Our witnesses testifying publicly today at great personal risk, he and other brave whistleblowers have come forward because the truth was because government secrecy cannot become government impunity. I want to acknowledge the Trump administration of officials who made good on their commitment to transparency and cooperated with this investigation. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Director of NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and former Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. They set a standard. I expect the rest of the administration to meet it. We owe the American people a complete record. We owe every family harmed by this pandemic a government that does not hide behind secrecy, conflicts, and curated science when the stakes are life and death, in public, starting today. I wanna note for the record that Mister Erdman is appearing today pursuant to a subpoena issued by this committee. on May fifth, two thousand and twenty six. This is a public hearing. The witness is a current CIA employee and has previously provided testimony to the committee in a classified setting. If a question calls for classified information, or if the witness believes any answer may implicate classified information, the witness should advise the committee before answering, and the committee will address the matter through the appropriate procedures. The transcript of the witness's prior classified deposition has not been finalized and has not completed classification review. Members and the witness should not quote from characterize or seek confirmation of deposition testimony that may contain classified information in this public setting. It is the practice of this committee to swear in the in the witness, will you please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth? the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God. Thank you. You may be seated. James E. Erdman, the third, is a CIA senior operations officer. He's a decorated officer with decades of intelligence and national security experience. Before joining the CIA in two thousand thirteen, he served with the second battalion, seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment. and as a Foreign Services Officer at the Department of State. He recently completed a joint duty assignment with the office of the Director of National Intelligence Director Initiatives Group. Mister Erdman holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Western Oregon University, and has received the Director of National Intelligence, National Intelligence Award and the CIA Intelligence Medal of Merit. Mister Erdman, you are recognized for your opening statement.

Good morning, Chairman Paul and other members of the oversight committee. Thank you for the complimentary introduction, and I appreciate the committee's dedication to transparency and accountability. I am a career CIA operations officer, and as you mentioned, I was on joint duty assignment at the office of Director National Intelligence Director's Initiatives Group. or the DIG, between March, twenty twenty five and April, twenty twenty six. I was responsible for leading the DIG's investigation into COVID origins, anomalous health incidents, and unidentified anomalous phenomena. I'm here today to discuss the COVID cover-up, the national security implications associated with the DIG's investigative findings, and CIA refusal to comply with lawful oversight, as well as how we remedy these problems. Intelligence community leaders and senior analysts downplayed the possibility that the COVID pandemic originated as a result of a lab incident. Motives are difficult to define, given the scope of the DIG's review. Intentional or not, the IC's actions resulted in a cover-up wasted resources, and a failure to properly inform policymakers. 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. Doctor Fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional. Doctor 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. This included some of the authors of the paper, The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2, and other public health experts who have been in his orbit for the last twenty plus years. Some of the scientists were part of the Biological Sciences Experts Group, or the BSEG, an office, an office of uh Director of National Intelligence Advisory Body, whose members often receive considerable funding from NIAID and public health agencies. The BSEG scientists influence national laboratory WMD research, policy decisions, finished analysis, and other intelligence matters, creating misaligned incentives, and conflicts of interest, as well as counterintelligence issues. Since two thousand six, the BSEG consulted part-time on bio-defense issues for the IC, while conducting government-funded research and holding academia positions. as well as maintaining roles in public health institutions and serving as members in the National Academy of Science. They received funding from NIAID and other agencies for vaccine research, USAID's Predict project, the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, it even worked with Chinese scientists on coronavirus and other pathogen studies pursuing vaccines. There was no oversight monitoring how this web of relationships influenced research, policy, and public health in any holistic way, for over twenty years. In fact, several of the BSEG scientists helped Doctor Fauci rewrite definitions of gain of function in twenty fifteen to lift a funding pause on dangerous research. Still others participated in event in planning event two O one in twenty nineteen. This was a coronavirus pandemic tabletop exercise, curiously similar to the events that played out during the COVID-nineteen pandemic. And it was attended by Doctor Fauci and individuals with IC ties, like former DNI Avril Haines. The CIA and DNI Analytic Managers, responsible for examining the origin of COVID, made decisions inconsistent with the conclusions of subject matter experts, and analytical tradecraft, consistently favoring the theory of zoonosis or natural origin. Following the CIA's COVID relook that culminated in twenty twenty three, the CIA retaliated against analysts supporting the lab leak hypothesis. CIA analysts were not bribed. that supported the twenty twenty three lab lead conclusion, took every administrative measure available to them, to address their deep concerns regarding the analytic integrity of their finished intelligence. CIA managers retaliated against them for their refusal to agree with management's middle of the night, anonymous rewrite of the analysis, which changed the assessment to a non-call judgment. Doctor Anthony's uh Fauci's influence over the IC's COVID origin analysis, and the winning and unwitting role some B seq scientists and IC personnel played in the cover-up exposed why this issue is of deep concern. Failure to address the United States government's inability to differenti- differentiate between public health and bio-defense. And the oversight-resistant ecosystem of life science actors has been fertile ground for increasingly dangerous continental United States gain-of-function research as well as similar research conducted in US government-supported labs abroad. Post-nine eleven changes in public health and bio-defense roles and responsibilities have blurred the lines between scientists the military, the intelligence community. It has resulted in a deliberately opaque opaque and excessively redundant biodefense research, policy, and financial infrastructure, seemingly intended to escalate bureaucratic bloat. This is a national security crisis caused by the inability to provide real oversight. The systematic failures associated with muddled boundaries between bio-defense and public health and an overly complex infrastructure have been exacerbated by documented efforts to circumvent oversight. CIA did not comply with lawful oversight during the dig's investigation. The behavior significantly impacted Director Gabbert's implement implementation of several EOs issued during this administration and tasked to the dig. The CIA refused to provide information necessary to understand understand why analytical standards at the CIA were violated. The CIA illegally monitored the computer and phone usage of big personnel, their investigations, and contact with whistleblowers. These were Americans being spied upon illegally, while executing duties directed by the president. and under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. One CIA contractor assisting with the dig's investigation into the events that transpired between twenty twenty-two and twenty twenty-three was fired by the CIA one day after meeting with the dig. When the dig ceased operations, the CIA also took back forty boxes of JFK files and MK ultra files being processed for declassification by D and I Gabard. The legislative and executive branches will continue to be misinformed if this type of behavior is not addressed. The partial partial solution to dangerous gain of function has already been laid out in executive order one four two nine two, improving the safety and security of biological research, We need a comprehensive review of government-funded life science research, and a move back to pre-nine eleven definitions of gain of function and WMD research, particularly in the IC and DHS. More broadly, we need effective oversight. We must hold agencies responsible for failure to comply with executive order one four two nine two, and oversight must have teeth. you must be willing to pull the purse strings, and if necessary, convene another church committee. The results of our The results of our investigation would have been impossible without whistleblowers willing to come forward. They are indispensable agents for reform. Despite statutory law, agency regulation, and training requirements, whistleblowers are almost never protected. Whistleblower protections always seem to protect the agency. Every time the CIA investigates itself, they coincidentally find no wrongdoing. When they do identify issues, they hold the system responsible. That last statement is a verbatim response from a Europe and Eurasia Mission Center lawyer, when the CIA Office of Inspector General did identify shortcomings so serious, oversight bodies were holding meetings about it three years after the events transpired. It was in response to the question, was anyone held accountable? Apparently the system is good enough. The only way we solve this issue is with real accountability for failure to comply with executive and legislative branch oversight and an escape valve, where whistleblowers can continue to contribute to mission free from retaliation. All IG elements need to be removed from the agencies and fall under a separate entity, controlled by the IC Inspector General. The personnel in IG elements should be eighteen eleven certified with regular DOJ and legislative oversight reporting responsibilities. Thank you, and my written written statement provides far more details related to these issues I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Erdman. I is it your testimony that there is still resistance from the CIA to comply with the law we passed to declassify all the COVID information? yes one of the things that um i think is new today that i'm hearing from your testimony is that from an early period of time you believe and the information you're aware of is that cia scientists from a early time after the pandemic began twenty twenty twenty twenty one uh were concluding that the lab leak was the most likely hypothesis

uh yes senator i i'd like to offer some qualifications on that as well um a lot of the the issues um occurred at the inter-agency space uh at the national intelligence council the individuals responsible for uh conducting uh or or writing wmd analysis so and many of those individuals are on jda from the cia but um yes uh very early as early as twenty twenty there were agencies within the ic circulating papers that um that said hey there's for example doe circulated a paper in may of twenty twenty that said that all the conditions were present for a lab leak um and i could go through the timeline uh but yes my short answer is yes periodically throughout twenty twenty all the way to twenty twenty four Yes.

It i- I think the argument, you know, pro and con for what is the evidence on whether this came from a lab or came from nature, are still important. So for years we've been asking the CIA to produce the scientists, uh, either in a classified setting or a public setting, to discuss the arguments. I don't see any reason why the argument should be classified. You know, one of one of the arguments that's made publicly is that the source looks like it came from a single source of RNA not like five different types of viruses or twenty different types. like you had with SARS two thousand three, but it came from one source and virtually everybody argues that sort of indicates a lab and not a nature. And so those arguments are important scientific arguments to have, but we've been prevented from having them, we've been preventing from uh getting all of the declassified information. But what I think is is of uh importance that's new today is that your testimony is that the CIA scientists were concluding that it was lab, but then when this uh there was a ninety day study in twenty twenty one and this study was uh done by nic led by nic tell us what nic is again

it's the national intelligence council and individuals responsible for writing various wmd and and and bio-related issues led that

so so when they had this study they had cia scientists telling them look the evidence the scientific evidence looks like it came from the lab but then they brought in anthony falchee And is it your opinion that Anthony Fauci uh was able to overrule the scientist, or get NIC to conclude somehow that there wasn't a conclusion to be had here, we're gonna be neutral, contradicting what the scientists were telling them?

So there there's two questions there, and I I wanna break them up into two. One is, where were the injection points, doctor Anthony Fauci, where did doctor Anthony Fauci in, and when did he inject himself into the IC? And the other half of that question, if I'm, if I'm, and I don't wanna extrapolate too much here is, okay, what happened with, with, why was there a change in analysis? So I'll start with the, if it's okay, Dr. Paul,

Sure.

Senator, I'll start with, uh, Dr. Anthony Fauci. There were two instances. On three February, twenty twenty, and four June, twenty twenty one, Anthony Fauci had contact with the inter-agency. And, uh, what, how did sort of broadly generalize this is that that contact um was happily pursued within the ic. They wanted that contact. And he provided a curated list of subject matter experts, which coincidentally wrote the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. So it's it's not like he came in and said, you have to do x, y, and z. He provided recommendations. It's when you look at when you look at uh what has already been publicly released about uh, Doctor Fauci, and then what you're seeing under the curtain at the IC where you realise, OK, there is a narrative that was being generated by his contact, not just with experts here in the United States, but experts in Australia and the UK, and that's the public facing piece. And, you know, he he tries to he had tried to sort of keep his hands clear of, I I didn't I didn't have anything to do with the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. But in the meantime, he's pushing those authors and individuals that have been in his orbit into the IC as experts. And, uh, I'll jump to to June, twenty twenty one. We, we as the IC at the NIC, um, happily pursued those recommendations. And, um, in one email, which I'll describe to you, um, the person in charge of of leading the ninety day study, um, you know, he introduced himself to the community that, uh, on what they on what they were supposed to be doing and then um the community said he said listen we've got these people we should be talking to and uh another very senior NIC officer sent a direct email to him saying hey considering that doctor Fauci is a public health expert are you sure we should be relying on this shouldn't we shouldn't we have a separate set and in this instance the the individual responded no in this case um doctor anthony fauci is a subject matter expert however that's directly contradicting his public testimony of being a subject matter expert

so part of the job in intelligence when you interview someone is assessing their truthfulness their um potential biases or conflicts of interest did anyone ever bring up that anthony fauci approved the research that went on in wuhan and it might not be in his interest for the conclusion to be that it came from a lab that he had funded that there might be a conflict that was, did anybody ever bring up that he might not be an objective uh witness?

That was one example of an email, no one laid it out quite that clearly. You're piecing it together, we were piecing it together from multiple emails, from multiple agencies, multiple documents. It was, it was, it was more subtle than that, nobody said this is happening, and unfortunately, I think they probably should have, it was all, it was all out there.

But your conclusion is that um changing from the scientific consensus of it being from a lab to a neutral position by the cia was significantly influenced by anthony falchee

it was significantly influenced by anthony falchee's uh injecting himself into the ic and to go to the second part of your question about what happened uh particularly during the ninety day study uh we have documentation uh that shows that as of august twelfth uh the cia was considering calling this a lab leak august twelfth of twenty twenty one and then um that changed on august seventeenth of twenty twenty one

right

and unfortunately because the cia would not provide us documentation that we asked for we we can't we have no idea why that changed and that

and and

that's

and they weren't alone because we know the fbi was coming to the same conclusion that was lab leak as well as um the fbi um

sort of a central

uh senator ernst

Thank thank you, Mister Chair. Thank you. Really appreciate you being here today. Um, I know that this has been a a topic for many of us for many years, Mm. and we continue to get pushback from the federal government as we're trying to uncover uh the truth to this matter. Um, for years folks who discussed a possible COVID lab origin were dismissed as conspiracy theorists s they were censored. Um, some were even fired from their jobs. If there was or is a conspiracy, then U. S. government officials and U. S. funded scientists keeping secrets should be publicly questioned under oath about what they knew and when they knew it. But U. S. funded scientists somehow are still protected from being questioned publicly even though they received millions of taxpayer dollars from NIH d h s d o e and d o d and look folks um i've long warned about a potential government cover cover-up of the truth which our brave witness again thank you mister erdman uh has confirmed to us today i've called for answers from doctor ralph barrick an expert virologist who showed the intelligence community in january twenty twenty before the american people knew about the pandemic that quote, " we may be on the verge of a global pandemic," end quote. Yet nothing was done to share this information with the American people. I exposed that the Wuhan lab received one point four million dollars in federal funds, fought to cut off every single cent flowing to that lab, and I won on this for the taxpayers. And I haven't backed down from fighting for more information on the true COVID origins. And yet Congress is still here, six years later, begging agencies to share answers and for committees to make relevant documents public. We are tired of Washington cover-ups. And if they aren't our screw-ups here in the US, why would the US government cover up for the CCP and other countries? So, Mister Erdman, Americans would have been angry to learn in early twenty twenty that their government may have played a role in COVID-nineteen's creation. Would you say such thinking influenced the intelligence community to suppress a lab leak origin theory?

I would say that there there's evidence in the emails, uh, that it was part of the calculus. I wouldn't say so it's it's it's very difficult, it's more subt subtle.

OK.

Um, there's sort of a zeitgeist that runs underneath the analysis and i'll i'll i'll provide a conversation i had with one of our whistleblowers and i asked and he this individual was is an incredibly talented scientist and i said i asked that individual why don't you why don't you actually go forward go public there's there's a lot of reasons not to do that uh there's a whole bunch

mmm

his comment was um nobody wants uh the nobody wanted the labley conclusion and um i'm concerned that there's too many people willing to make excuses for china in this organization for the wrong reasons um that that's that was pervasive and so the individuals we talked to um they never said you know one for one you know it's because they disliked the sitting president or they were they were uh trying to cover up like managers were trying to cover up for china but it was a pervasive uh undercurrent is how they described it and i think

mmm

i think to answer your question um there certainly uh reluctance to uh reluctance to provide information that would be geopolitically destabilizing or provide ammunition ammunition for um actions that maybe they thought would be unwise.

No, that

Did I answer your question, Senator?

Yes, you did, and it's it's troubling to hear that there's an undercurrent of making excuses for China as well. Um, I deeply troubling. Um, we spend millions of dollars to have an early warning intelligence system. And yet today I'm hearing the system may have been alerted, uh, but no one was acting on the information. Uh, do you think that's an accurate statement?

I can't speak to the health agencies. I can say that the IC was certainly aware, um, early on that there looked like there might be an issue. And so the intelligence that had come in, I don't think they sat on it. I I don't think they sat on the intelligence. Now, that speaks to maybe, uh, a broader issue with the interaction between IC elements and non-IC elements, maybe there's there's some improvements that could be made there, but I I didn't see the IC sitting on information uh extraordinarily long.

OK, it could have been um agencies then extraneous to the IC.

Right, and and you know, the bureaucracy is real. I mean, it there's it's just everyday sometimes feels like a fight just to get sir simple things done and that's just part of working in a large organization. So I'm I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying from the intelligence perspective, um, I think they identified fairly quickly that this might be an issue.

Mm-hmm. And with this as an issue, uh, typically we go back, we do after action reviews. Uh, do you think this is something that the US government has learned from? Uh, I see you grimace. Maybe share a little bit about that, because if this is a system-wide ac- across a federal government, you know, how do we stop this from happening again? What lessons have we learned from this? If any, um, you're still coming forward as a a whistleblower. Uh, so what have we taken away from this and and how do we prevent this from happening in the future whether it's you know the spread of a pandemic or you know, what happened within the agency?

So I really don't wanna go beyond I see too much, because I'm not part of like the health establishment, I'm not I'm not in that organization, but part of the reason the dig was pulled together as a task force, it was a temporary tool to to perform something like an after action review and get at the bottom of what happened. And if you're asking me, did we learn anything? Well the problem is, um, we did not receive support from the cia in terms of and i i've documented in my transcribed interview, and i don't wanna go into the specifics of that, but there were very specific lists of information we needed so that we could put into context what happened. Um, and so no, I don't think we've learned our lesson when it comes to uh, transparency and reform. Um, we didn't get the documents we needed. Senator, your committee issued uh, what was it, uh, fourteen subpoenas in January of twenty twenty five requesting documents. And Director Gabbard did her absolute best to try and force the IC to start producing these documents. And they, bunch of them got sent over to odni and but we still didn't get all of them like and and so what i'll say is like we we did not get the documents we needed from the cia um state inr um

mmm

and so the lessons in terms of transparency reform i don't think those occurred and they can only occur and they can only occur if we actually do a a a full review of what happened during covid and again There's a there's a fair question. How long do you wanna be backwards leaning looking at COVID? That's a fair question. You you only have limited resources, limited time, limited personnel, and we have limited experts that work within the CIA and they've got forward facing threats. Yeah. Thank you. The reason COVID is so important is because what we did find is that

Right.

there is a much larger meta problem sitting on top of COVID. um the fact that we have these these scientists and again i'm not vilifying any of these i these scientists we contracted in to come to the ic we desperately need their their expertise and so when we invite them in we're inviting them in because we want their help and so we need them

mmm

but those same scientists it's this ecosystem that that has a lot of money involved uh you've got they're involved with the national academy of science, for example, some of them. And you know, national academy of science also helps um with our WMD policy for the US government. Unfortunately, the national academy of science also has a great number of Chinese researchers that co-publish. And so, if we're not careful, we're gonna have uh Chinese researchers helping us draft US WMD policy. That's not a good thing. Um,

Not yet.

you've got the counter-threat reduction program involve some of these IC scientists. And once you start cross-pollinating like that, being able to tease out and really provide proper oversight becomes so, so difficult. And you're you're talking about also multiple funding streams from multiple different places. It's a very complex problem, COVID, we need the AAR so that we and it already pointed to the bigger problem, so maybe that's enough.

Great.

But we need that.

Thank you, Mr. Erdman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

senator ernst one thing i would interject as far as lessons from my perspective is the scientists overseeing gain-of-function research can't be the scientists receiving the money

mmm right

so uh we voted last year on the risky research review act it'll be a presidential commission but the scientists that oversee gain-of-function would not be receiving nih grants part of it is that had a fiefdom this enormous fiefdom and he was controlling the funds but then there was a danger of that he doles it out people who agree with them and i think that was happening

mmm yeah point point well taken

senator reyno

thank you mr. chairman uh mr. headmaster first of all thank you for your service to our nation in uh in the past current and future uh quick question for you eh because i've obviously never uh been in a cia is it easy to be a whistleblower is it easy to kind of think about hey i'm gonna go outside the normal chain of command or is there come with personal risk career risk etcetera

um

I do not believe whistleblower protections are sufficient to protect whistleblowers.

So, so it's, so it's not easy. So it's not easy for you to be here,

It is not easy.

especially you're serving now today. What is your, what is your reaction when you look at the diets and you see that there's not a single solitary Democrat member here to listen to your testimony? How does that make you feel?

Um. My goal in being here, uh, is threefold. Uh, you know, I wanna talk about COVID.

Oh, I, I get that, but I'm saying, but you took,

I wish they were there.

you're,

I wish they were there.

right, you're taking personal risk. you're serving the country, you're not partisan. You have, you're, this is not about politics, but somehow it's become about politics because the Democrats don't even wanna hear the conversation about what obviously was a grave error that this country made during COVID and unlike previous situations there's never been a situation, certainly not in my lifetime, where you had decisions made that affected generations of America, of Americans, kids that were absolutely deprived of their childhood. businesses that were destroyed, families that were torn apart, memories that you'll never get back, trillions of dollars of economic loss, we should at least have a conversation that isn't partisan. And yet, just for the record, there's not a single solitary Democrat senator that's willing to sit in this chamber and listen to your testimony, I think that's an outrage and an insult to people like you. So I'm gonna bring a little more levity to what I just said.

OK.

Uh, back in June of twenty one, you talked about that, which is interesting, June of twenty one. I remember June of twenty one as, uh, something that, um, came up during a comedy show. I'm not somebody who listens to Stephen Colbert, but he had Jon Stewart on,

Ah.

and he said, and I'm gonna, I'm paraphrasing Jon Stewart, I will not deliver it with the same kind of, uh, comedic punch, but it said, " Oh my God, there's been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think happened?" like oh i don't know maybe the steam shovel made it with a cocoa bean or it's maybe the chocolate factory maybe that's it and simple joke talk about or maybe the simpler solution is maybe the uh the virus leak happened from the virus lab in the city of wuhan or maybe uh this uh chain of events of animals mating to each other all over the world resulted in this virus uh what ended up happening is that john stewart was immediately tortured. The Washington Post called his his joke a a dangerous uh weapon of propaganda. They called him conspiratorial. And he got massive personal backlash. That was in June of twenty one. So does it turn out that the chocolatey goodness came from the chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania?

Yeah, um, the just as uh director Ratcliffe said in twenty twenty, it sure looks like the chocolatey factor factory is is actually where the chocolate came from.

Yeah. And in fact, it's funny that we're all sitting here today because in that same uh torture of John Stewart, uh the uh Stephen Colbert uh said that maybe John Stewart was a uh somehow a uh spy of Senator Johnson. Cuz Senator Johnson was the one senator that was saying this in the very beginning, has continued to hold that accountability, and I applaud uh Senator Johnson for his absolutely relentless pursuit of the truth in all of this. But let me just um spend the last few minutes here talking to you about something that you mentioned which is near and dear to my heart. And I think all these hearings are important. What you said is super critical, and again I applaud you for taking and having the courage to come here, and your detailed and methodical review of all this. But where's the accountability? This is, this is what I hear from my constituents all over Ohio. It's like, " Great, you got a hearing, you said this and that happened." Uh, but they wanna see the perp walks. Where are the people who made these decisions, and where, how do we hold them accountable? Anthony Fauci is sitting, probably sipping margaritas somewhere, uh, with his multimillion dollar, uh, uh, financial success as a result of, uh, duping the American people into putting an experimental virus in their, uh, uh, vaccine into their bodies, or lose, risk losing their jobs. he's not accountable to anybody. He's having a great life. He was featured on Vogue magazine. He sat there for a cover shot for a day, uh, trying to get beauty shots of him, which I imagine the photographer found, found difficult. What do you think, where do you think the, we are on a path to accountability?

So I, I don't work at DOJ, and so I can't speak to prosecutions or perp walks or any of that stuff. But what I'll say is, and I wanna go back to the first thing you mentioned here about the american public, i i think, and this is my opinion, i'm not expressing myself as a cia cia officer or on loan to dni, whatever it is. i think we really want both democrats and republicans to show up and communicate and cooperate on issues, because part of the most important, and you all know this i'm sorry i'm less legislative branch, they they have some power of oversight. Um, you guys are not, you can't make DOJ uh prosecute anybody. You can, you can reach across the aisle and you can try and get these people to pull the purse strings, when agencies are behaving poorly. And um, you know, from my perspective, and I don't mean to criticize ev- anyone, we need the legislative branch to start pulling purse strings. It's gotta be with teeth, if you want accountability and this is perfect this this form here is perfect it's about the transparency piece, can't act unless people know. On the accountability side um I can tell you that Director Gabbard is doing her best to pursue accountability with all of the investigations that were undertaken by the DIG and um you know we can silver serve everything up and it's up to DOJ to take action at that point and I I can't speak to I can't speak to DOJ but Yeah.

No, I understand that. I, and I think with the American people, uh, would even expect at a minimum is a, just an apology. An apology for putting the country through this, not giving the proper information. I think that would go a long way. But certainly there was clearly bad actors. Uh, Mr. Chairman, you talked about the conflicts of interest. The way you described it is very nice, but ultimately it's corruption. I mean, when somebody is getting paid to give an opinion that's not fact-based, and it it leads to personal gain, that's just flat-out corruption. And what makes America unique is that we don't allow that kind of corruption in our government. And so I think ultimately where this all has to land is there has to be explicit accountability for individuals who profited off of the misinformation, the shaming of Americans, and the and the systematic destruction of lots and lots of things in this country. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator.

senator johnson

thank you mr. chair and and another excellent hearing um uh i feel your pain and frustration uh in terms of trying to do oversight investigation and issuing subpoenas that are not responded to certainly not in full uh barely responded to generally what what responses we get are generally non-responsive responses just bunch of bureaucratic gobbledygooks so um again i i appreciate your efforts though um mr. erdman i appreciate you coming forward uh one thing i know know as former chairman of the full committee now as the chairman of the department of subcommittee investigations is we do not protect whistleblowers we have laws dating back over a hundred years and the government is the worst offender in terms of retaliating against whistleblowers even though there's all kinds of these legal protections so i i appreciate you doing this um uh i'll also note cause i'm Nothing shocks me anymore. With our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, but I'm I'm shocked that not one of them showed up here. Well, I think one showed up to register his attendance and then gone. Um, I agree with you. It is well past time for us to have a church committee. We're not gonna get bipartisan support for church church committee. There's there's no curiosity on the other side about what's happening inside the deep state. And that's really my question. Who is running The deep state. I've got example after example in agency after agency. Ver- very legitimate oversight requests. I subpoena documents. You don't get squat. Now. I asked for your testimony last night. And I realize, and I really appreciate the fact that the the committee staff and chairman Paul is very, very concerned about retaliation against you. Apparently they didn't clear your testimony here with the CIA. Is that true?