(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records concerning Dr. Anthony Fauci’s communications with the Intelligence Community about the origins of Covid-19, gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the selection of scientific experts consulted during the government’s Covid-19 origins investigations (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Central Intelligence Agency (Case 1:26-cv-03336)).
Judicial Watch filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the CIA failed to respond to a May 2026 FOIA request for:
- Communications involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and others (including his executive assistants, senior advisors, or counsel) concerning the origins of Covid-19, gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, EcoHealth Alliance, coronavirus research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the selection of subject-matter experts.
- Records concerning the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Biological Sciences Experts Group (BSEG), including its membership, work, conflicts of interest disclosures and recusal records, and correspondence, with particular attention to Dr. Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Communications between CIA employees and employees of the ODNI Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) from March 1, 2025, through April 30, 2026, concerning the origins of Covid-19, the CIA’s production of records to the DIG, any refusal or limitation on that production, or CIA Senior Operations Officer James E. Erdman III.
The request followed congressional scrutiny of Fauci’s contacts with the CIA and comes after explosive testimony by Erdman before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 13, 2026. Erdman testified as a whistleblower concerning the government’s investigation of Covid-19’s origins.
In the hearing, Erdman testified that:
On April 8, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard created a task force charged with restoring transparency and accountability to the Intelligence Community. The group was called DIG, or Director’s Initiatives Group …
Erdman asserted:
Dr. Anthony Fauci influenced the IC’s analytic process and Covid origin’s findings by leveraging his position to ensure the IC consulted with a conflicted list of curated Subject Matter Experts (SME), public health officials, and scientists. This included the authors of the paper “The Proximal Origin of SARS-COV-2” and other public health experts and scientists who have been in his orbit for 20+ years, many of whom have and did receive funding from NIAID, as well as scientists working under IC contract.
This contradicts Dr. Fauci’s 2024 testimony to Congress, when he answered “not to my knowledge” when asked if he had briefed any intel agency concerning viral research.
The BSEG [Biological Sciences Experts Group] scientists influenced national laboratory WMD [weapons of mass destruction] research, policy decisions, finished analysis, and other intelligence matters, creating misaligned incentives and conflicts of interest, as well as counter-intelligence issues.
In a chronology of the origin of Covid-19, Erdman testified:
Dr. Fauci injected himself into the process during two key timeframes. First in February 2020 as the pandemic started and in June 2021 as the IC was initiating a 90-day review of all source intelligence. His involvement with the IC in February 2020, when compared to his public-facing actions and that which has been revealed to the public from FOIA results, clearly indicates his actions were intentional. It gave the appearance that he was seeking to ensure the IC did not get too far ahead of the narrative he was generating with overseas partners like Jeremy Farrar and Edward Holmes; while making sophomoric attempts to publicly claim he did not have a hand in the findings from Kristian Andersen’s paper “The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2.” Instead, he pressured the IC to meet with the paper’s authors and a curated list of supporters who also happened to receive NIAID funding and in some cases were part of the IC’s advisory body of scientists.
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[On] 4 June 2021, there was an interagency meeting which included Dr. Anthony Fauci. He provided specific guidance regarding the IC’s outreach efforts. The NIC officer in charge of the 90-day study proceeded to ensure Dr. Fauci’s recommendations were pursued.
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Sometime between 12 and 17 August 2021, the CIA changed its assessment from lab incident to a non-consensus determination. There is no indication based on the documents in DIG holdings to indicate why the assessment changed.
“The whistleblower testimony raises serious questions about Fauci’s contacts with the Intelligence Community and the process used to determine which experts would advise intelligence officials about Covid-19’s origins,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people deserve to see the underlying CIA records. If Fauci influenced the selection of experts or the Intelligence Community’s analysis, the public has a right to know exactly what happened and who was involved.”
Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuits and investigations have uncovered much of what the public knows about many Covid-19 controversies:
In August 2026, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Justice for the contents of Fauci’s government-issued cell phones. The phones were provided to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Fauci and later reportedly recovered by the FBI (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-02812)).
In May 2026, Judicial Watch filed a post-hearing brief in a FOIA lawsuit on behalf of Open the Books, urging a federal court to compel the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to release unredacted records showing royalty-related payments to government scientists, including Fauci.
In April 2026, Judicial Watch sued the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records and communications of its employees with other government officials regarding coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and related Covid-19 research.
In March 2026, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Defense (War Department) for records on funding proposals submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Biological Technologies Office was launched in 2014.
In June 2025, Judicial Watch sued the Defense Department for all records regarding U.S. military personnel possibly contracting Covid-19 in October 2019 during the World Military Games in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit cited a December 2022 report issued by the Pentagon titled “Report to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives: 2019 World Military Games” which states that seven “service members who attended the games exhibited Covid-19-like signs and/or symptoms” during the time surrounding their attendance at the games.
In May 2025, Judicial Watch received records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that revealed its plans to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for 17 million health care employees and that only one of 4,682 claims for injuries and deaths due to Covid-19 “countermeasures” at the time was compensated.
Records uncovered in 2024 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a FOIA request showed an April 2020 email exchange with several officials in the bureau’s Newark Field Office referring to a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as including “gain-of-function research” which “would leave no signature of purposeful human manipulation.”
Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that a Pfizer study surveyed 23 people in 2021 to gauge reactions to its Covid vaccine booster before asking the FDA to approve it.
Records from the Health and Human Services included the initial grant application and annual reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from EcoHealth Alliance, describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create mutant viruses “to better predict the capacity of our CoVs [coronaviruses] to infect people.”
Health and Human Services records included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins showing a British physicians’ group recommended the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19.
Records from Health and Human Services regarding data Moderna submitted to the Food and Drug Administration on its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine indicated a “statistically significant” number of rats were born with skeletal deformations after their mothers were injected with the vaccine. The documents also revealed Moderna elected not to conduct a number of standard pharmacological studies on the laboratory test animals.
Food and Drug Administration records detailed pressure for Covid-19 vaccine booster approval and use.
National Institutes of Health records revealed an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.
Health and Human Services records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the National Institutes of Health’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
Health and Human Services records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international councils as high level commitment from China.”
Health and Human Services records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appeared to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARS-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
Health and Human Services records showed the State Department and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding Covid-19 data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.
University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records showed the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the Covid issue by Congress.
Health and Human Services records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the Covid-19 vaccines showed a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) revealed safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
Health and Human Services records included emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19.
Health and Human Services records showed that National Institutes of Health officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” Covid-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
Fauci emails included his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.
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