The CIA’s War on Oversight
An out of control agency
The Rogue State
Explosive congressional testimony that the CIA manipulated COVID-origin intelligence, obstructed oversight, surveilled investigators, and reclaimed JFK and MKUltra files beyond the reach of Congress, the DNI, and even the President.
Note that not a single democrat showed up for this hearing.
The testimony of CIA operations officer James Erdman to Congress yesterday paints a devastating picture of a U.S. intelligence and public health establishment that manipulated COVID-origin analysis, retaliated against dissenting analysts, obstructed lawful oversight, and protected institutional interests, including what they know about the JFK assassination, at the expense of transparency and accountability.
On a personal note, I have known James for a few years. He is a non-nonsense and honest person. He doesn’t embellish, and he doesn’t lie. He has put everything on the line to bring truth to power.
Erdman, who served in the Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence between 2025 and 2026, testified that elements within the intelligence community identified evidence supporting a laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2 as early as 2020. Internal papers circulated by agencies, including DOE and the FBI, reportedly concluded that the conditions for a lab leak were present.
Erdman describes how analysts supporting the lab-leak hypothesis were later marginalized while official assessments drifted toward politically safer “no conclusion” positions.
Central to the testimony are allegations involving Anthony Fauci. Erdman says that Fauci inserted himself into the intelligence community’s analytical process during key phases of the COVID-origin review, providing a curated network of experts closely tied to himself, the “Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” narrative, and longstanding NIH/NIAID funding relationships.
Rather than acting as an independent public health adviser, Fauci is described as shaping the expert ecosystem that influences intelligence conclusions while publicly distancing himself from direct involvement.
The testimony describes how post-9/11 biodefense infrastructure created a sprawling, opaque network linking intelligence agencies, public health bureaucracies, federally funded research programs, academia, and international laboratory collaborations. Erdman argues that these overlapping relationships produced systemic conflicts of interest and an oversight-resistant culture incapable of objectively investigating the origins of the pandemic. I can attest to this, having worked in the biodefense industry for the past 25 years.
Some of the most explosive allegations concern obstruction and internal surveillance. Erdman states that the CIA refused to provide records necessary to determine why analytical standards had allegedly been violated.
He further elaborates that the agency illegally monitored the phones, computers, investigations, and whistleblower communications of DIG personnel while they were carrying out duties authorized by the President and the Director of National Intelligence.
One CIA contractor assisting the DIG investigation was allegedly terminated one day after meeting with investigators.
Most stunning of all, Erdman alleges that when the DIG ceased operations, the CIA reclaimed 40 boxes of Assassination of John F. Kennedy files and Project MKUltra documents that were reportedly being processed for declassification under DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Compounding these allegations is a subsequent public statement from the official CIA account on X, which reinforces the extraordinary degree to which the agency controls what information Congress and the public are ultimately permitted to review and discuss.
This statement by the CIA underscores a broader theme running throughout Erdman’s testimony: that unelected intelligence institutions possess the practical power to delay, shape, limit, or obstruct oversight even when formal declassification orders from the President or congressional mandates exist. This is a rogue organization, that is out of control. An organization beyond the reach of the President of the United States, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and even Congress.
It is fair to speculate that the CIA has become the world's most powerful organization.
Taken together, the testimony reframes the COVID-origin controversy as far more than a scientific debate. Erdman’s allegations describe a national security crisis involving intelligence integrity, biodefense policy, censorship, bureaucratic self-protection, suppression of dissent, and the potential obstruction of lawful oversight at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The implications extend well beyond COVID-19 and strike at the heart of public trust in America’s intelligence and public health institutions.
For those that want to listen to some of the testimony. Below are four of the more important videos and transcripts.
Video 1:
Transcript:
“I am a career CIA operations officer, and as you mentioned, I was on joint duty assignment at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Director’s Initiatives Group, or the DIG, between March 2025 and April 2026.
I was responsible for leading the DIG’s investigation into COVID origins, anomalous health incidents, and unidentified anomalous phenomena.
RWM Note: The Director’s Initiatives Group, or DIG, is reportedly a specialized unit operating under the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). According to the James Erdman in this testimony, the DIG was tasked with investigating a range of highly sensitive national security issues, including COVID-19 origins, anomalous health incidents such as Havana Syndrome, unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), and related oversight and declassification matters.
In practical terms, the DIG appears to have functioned as a cross-agency investigative and coordination group rather than a traditional intelligence collection unit. Its role was reportedly to review intelligence assessments, coordinate sensitive inquiries across agencies, and examine matters involving potential failures of oversight, analytical integrity, and national security policy.
Very little public information exists about the DIG, and no detailed official organizational description has been publicly released. The statements made in the following transcript reflect the views and allegations of the speaker.
James Erdman: “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 emergency use authorization mRNA products being mandated by the former administration.
Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional.
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 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 20-plus years.
Some of the scientists were part of the Biological Sciences Experts Group, or BSEG, an Office of the 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 2006, the BSEG consulted part-time on biodefense issues for the IC while conducting government-funded research and holding academic positions, as well as maintaining roles in public health institutions and serving as members of the National Academy of Sciences.
They received funding from NIAID and other agencies for vaccine research, USAID’s PREDICT project, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and 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 20 years.
In fact, several of the BSEG scientists helped Dr. Fauci rewrite definitions of gain-of-function in 2015 to lift a funding pause on dangerous research.
Still others participated in planning Event 201 in 2019.
This was a coronavirus pandemic tabletop exercise curiously similar to the events that played out during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was attended by Dr. Fauci and individuals with IC ties like former DNI Avril Haines.
The CIA and DNI analytic managers responsible for examining the origins of COVID made decisions inconsistent with the conclusions of subject matter experts and analytic tradecraft, consistently favoring the theory of zoonosis, or natural origin.
Following the CIA’s COVID relook that culminated in 2023, the CIA retaliated against analysts supporting the lab leak hypothesis.
CIA analysts were not bribed.
The analysts that supported the 2023 lab 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.
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s influence over the IC’s COVID origin analysis, and the witting and unwitting role some BSEG 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 differentiate between public health and biodefense, 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 U.S. government-supported labs abroad.
Post-9/11 changes to public health and biodefense roles and responsibilities have blurred the lines between scientists, the military, and the intelligence community.
It has resulted in a deliberately 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 biodefense 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 Gabbard’s implementation of several executive orders issued during this administration and tasked to the DIG.
The CIA refused to provide information necessary to understand why analytical standards at the CIA were violated.
The CIA illegally monitored the computer and phone usage of DIG 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 2022 and 2023 was fired by the CIA one day after meeting with the DIG.
When the DIG ceased operations, the CIA also took back 40 boxes of JFK files and MKUltra files being processed for declassification by DNI Gabbard.
The legislative and executive branches will continue to be misinformed if this type of behavior is not addressed.
The partial solution to dangerous gain-of-function research has already been laid out in Executive Order 14292, “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-9/11 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 14292.
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 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 success 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 1811-certified, with regular DOJ and legislative oversight reporting responsibilities.”
Senator Rand Paul:
“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?”
James Erdman:
“Yes.”
Senator Rand Paul:
“One of the things that 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 an early time after the pandemic began, 2020 and 2021, were concluding that the lab leak was the most likely hypothesis.”
James Erdman:
“Yes, Senator. I’d like to offer some qualifications on that as well.
A lot of the issues occurred in the interagency space at the National Intelligence Council, the individuals responsible for conducting or writing WMD analysis. Many of those individuals are on JDA from the CIA.
But yes, very early, as early as 2020, there were agencies within the IC circulating papers that said, for example, DOE circulated a paper in May of 2020 stating that all the conditions were present for a lab leak.
I could go through the timeline, but yes, my short answer is yes. Periodically throughout 2020 all the way to 2024.”
Video 2
Transcript:
“Senator Rand Paul:
“Yes, I think the arguments, pro and con, for what is the evidence on whether this came from a lab or came from nature are still important.
For years, we’ve been asking the CIA to produce the scientists either in a classified setting or a public setting to discuss the arguments. I don’t see any reason why the arguments should be classified.
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 20 different types like you had with SARS in 2003, but from one source. Virtually everybody argues that this sort of indicates a lab and not nature.
Those arguments are important scientific arguments to have, but we’ve been prevented from having them. We’ve been prevented from getting all of the declassified information.
But what I think is important and new today is that your testimony is that CIA scientists were concluding that it was a lab leak, but then when there was a 90-day study in 2021, and this study was led by NIC. Tell us again what NIC is.”
James Erdman:
“It’s the National Intelligence Council, and the individuals responsible for writing various WMD and biodefense-related issues led the effort.”
Senator Rand Paul:
“So when they had this study, they had CIA scientists telling them, ‘Look, the scientific evidence looks like it came from the lab.’ But then they brought in Anthony Fauci.
Is it your opinion that Anthony Fauci was able to overrule the scientists or get NIC to conclude somehow that there wasn’t a conclusion to be had here? That they were going to be neutral, contradicting what the scientists were telling them?”
James Erdman:
“There are two questions there, and I want to break them up into two.
One is: where were the injection points? Where and when did Dr. Anthony Fauci inject himself into the IC?
And the other half of that question is: what happened with the change in analysis?
So I’ll start with Dr. Anthony Fauci.
There were two instances: 3 February 2020 and 4 June 2021. Anthony Fauci had contact with the interagency community.
Broadly speaking, that contact was happily pursued within the IC. They wanted that contact, and he provided a curated list of subject matter experts, which coincidentally included the authors of ‘The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.’
So 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 what has already been publicly released about Dr. Fauci, and then what you’re seeing behind the curtain at the IC, where you realize 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.
That’s the public-facing piece.
He tried to keep his hands clear by saying, ‘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 who had been in his orbit into the IC as experts.
I’ll jump to June 2021.
We, as the IC at NIC, happily pursued those recommendations.
In one email, which I’ll describe to you, the person in charge of leading the 90-day study introduced himself to the community and what they were supposed to be doing.
He said, ‘Listen, we’ve got these people we should be talking to.’
Another very senior NIC officer sent a direct email to him saying, ‘Hey, considering that Dr. Fauci is a public health expert, are you sure we should be relying on this? Shouldn’t we have a separate set of experts?’
In this instance, the individual responded, ‘No, in this case, Dr. Anthony Fauci is a subject matter expert.’
However, that directly contradicts his public testimony about not being a subject matter expert.
Part of the job in intelligence when you interview someone is assessing their truthfulness, their potential biases, or conflicts of interest.”
Senator Rand Paul:
“Did anyone ever bring up that Anthony Fauci approved the research that went on in Wuhan, and that it might not be in his interest for the conclusion to be that it came from a lab he had funded? That there might be a conflict? Did anybody ever bring up that he might not be an objective witness?”
James Erdman:
“That was one example in an email.
No one laid it out quite that clearly. You’re piecing it together.
We were piecing it together from multiple emails, multiple agencies, and multiple documents.
It was more subtle than that. Nobody said directly, ‘This is happening.’
And unfortunately, I think they probably should have. It was all out there.”
Senator Rand Paul:
“But your conclusion is that changing from the scientific consensus of it being from a lab to a neutral position by the CIA was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci?”
James Erdman:
“It was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci injecting himself into the IC.
And to go to the second part of your question about what happened during the 90-day study, we have documentation showing that as of August 12, 2021, the CIA was considering calling this a lab leak.
Then that changed on August 17, 2021.
Unfortunately, because the CIA would not provide us documentation we asked for, we have no idea why that changed.
And they weren’t alone, because we know the FBI was coming to the same conclusion, that it was a lab leak.”
Video 3
Transcript:
”The CIA refused to provide information necessary to understand why analytical standards at the CIA were violated.
The CIA illegally monitored the computer and phone usage of dig 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 national intelligence.
One CIA contractor assisting with the Diggs investigation into the events that transpired between 2022 and 2023 was fired by the CIA one day after meeting with the Dig.
When the Dig ceased operations, the CIA also took back 40 boxes of JFK files and MK Ultra files being processed for declassification by DNI Gabbard.”
Video 4:
Let’s just end with this:
Transcript:
Senator Rand Paul:
Is it your testimony that there is still resistance from the CIA to comply with the law that we passed to de-classify all the COVID information?
James Erdman:
yes…
TYPO FIXED! It should read:
"On a personal note, I have known James for a few years. He is a non-nonsense and honest person. He doesn’t embellish, and he doesn’t lie. He has put everything on the line to bring truth to power."
Grateful to Mr. Erdman. To Dr. Malone. To Rand Paul. To Ron Johnson. To RFK Jr, who was way out in front on this subject matter with "The Real Anthony Fauci," which I count as one of the most important books of our time. The book has been out for more than 4 years, but evidently many in Congress remain willfully oblivious and/or mute on the institutional malice documented therein.
To the majority of Congress who have done little or nothing as the most devastating medical tyranny in human history has been rolled out globally: May you live with the fact that you chose contributions, self interest, and re-election prospects over the wellbeing of your constituents; men, women, children, infants.