Newly released intelligence records show officials shared a 2016 video in which EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak described colleagues in China testing coronavirus spike proteins for their ability to bind to human cells.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly declassified intelligence documents show that a U.S. intelligence official circulated a video in 2021 of EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak describing coronavirus experiments carried out by colleagues in China, as Dr. Anthony Fauci continued publicly denying that his office had funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The records, released in a new batch of COVID-19 documents declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in the final hours of her tenure, included an internal email from an intelligence community official who alerted colleagues to the online video, Just the News reported.
“Hey guys, Just saw this video online,” the intelligence official wrote.
“It’s from a 2016 NY Academy of Medicine meeting where Daszak talks about his colleagues in China manipulating the spike protein on coronavirus to make them more virulent,” the official added.
The video posted to Rumble showed Daszak explaining how scientists working with coronaviruses gathered from bats used spike proteins from those viruses to test whether they could attach to human cells.
“We found other coronaviruses in bats … some of them looked very similar to SARS. So, we sequenced the spike protein, the protein that attaches to cells, then we–well I didn’t do this work, my colleagues in China did the work–you create pseudoparticles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, see if they bind to human cells,” Daszak said. “And each step of this you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people.”
Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance became central figures in the debate over the origins of COVID-19 because the nonprofit received U.S. government grants and supported research in Wuhan, China, where the virus is said to have originated. The organization’s work drew scrutiny because of questions over whether U.S. taxpayer funds were used, directly or indirectly, to support risky coronavirus research in China.
The newly released records show that intelligence officials were aware of the Daszak video in 2021, at a time when Fauci was still rejecting claims that the National Institutes of Health had funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.
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One month before the intelligence community email, Fauci had repeated his denial during Senate testimony, telling Sen. Rand Paul, “The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Later that year, the National Institutes of Health told Congress it had funded an experiment at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that altered a bat coronavirus through gain-of-function research.
The Daszak video and the internal intelligence email add to a broader record of disputes over federal funding, virus research and public statements made during the early pandemic. Fauci’s office had also pushed back against questions about whether COVID-19 may have emerged from a laboratory accident, as public debate over the virus’s origins intensified.
After President Donald Trump returned to office in January, the Department of Health and Human Services barred Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding for five years. HHS alleged that EcoHealth helped facilitate and pass taxpayer money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic began.
Additional documents declassified by Gabbard also showed that the Biden administration handled a whistleblower complaint alleging that Fauci had misled Congress about gain-of-function research at the National Institutes of Health.
“The complaint alleges Dr. Fauci provided false testimony to Congress related to the conduct of gain of function research at the National Institutes of Health, thereby ‘misleading the American people and Congressional oversight,’” Acting Intelligence Community Inspector General Tamara Johnson wrote Aug. 11, 2021, to then-DNI Avril Haines.
Instead of referring the matter to the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, which would have been responsible for reviewing misconduct allegations involving Fauci’s office, Haines referred the complaint to Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Biden political appointee who is now running for California governor.
Johnson said she did not believe the complaint should be sent to the HHS inspector general.
“The general dispute about ‘gain-of-function’ research is already in the public domain making it highly probable that the HHS-OIG would already be aware of the allegation that the Dr. Fauci’s testimony was inaccurate (albeit from a different source, not our ICWPA submitter). Consequently, we determined there would be no merit in referring the matter to HHS OIG,” Johnson wrote.
Gabbard said the records she released show that government officials, including Fauci, engaged in a cover-up over the origins of COVID-19 and the federal government’s knowledge of research in China.
“The tactics used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook: politicized self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected President by restricting his access to vital facts needed to keep the country safe,” Gabbard said. “It’s time the American people learn the real story.”
Fauci, who retired before Trump returned to the White House, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has denied lying to Congress. He accepted a pardon from President Joe Biden in late 2024.
Beyond the whistleblower allegations, Gabbard said she also believed Fauci lied to Congress in 2024 when he said he had not spoken with intelligence agencies about virus research.
The declassified intelligence email, the Daszak video and the whistleblower complaint are now part of renewed scrutiny over what federal officials knew about coronavirus research in China, how that information was handled and whether public statements to Congress and the American people accurately reflected the government’s own records.
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