▶ 0:15:14Chair Paul: The covid 19 pandemic was one of the most consequential events of our lifetime. 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.
▶ 0:15:37Chair Paul: The witness will testify that cia scientific analysts repeatedly concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of covid-19, and those conclusions were buried, soft and, or with help 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 experts.
▶ 0:16:06Chair Paul: But evidence before the committee tells a different story. Today, we will expose a system in which a small circle of officials -- scientists, grantees, and intelligence advisors -- moved from agency to agency, meeting to meeting, briefing two briefing, reviewing one another's work and shaping one another's conclusions, presenting those conclusions to congress as if they were independent conclusions. It was not independent. It was a circle.
▶ 0:16:36Chair Paul: One part of that circle was a body most americans have never heard of -- the biological sciences expert group. They operate 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.
▶ 0:17:03Chair Paul: Ralph barrett collaborated with a doctor in wuhan to create cultured coronavirus's. Dr. barrett was also part of bsag and consulted on the origins of the covid-19 pandemic. Likewise, peter receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. government and worked also on these gain of function experiments. He was even sent to china with the w.h.o.
▶ 0:17:33Chair Paul: 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.
▶ 0:17:59Chair Paul: The cia then consults them and gives them access to classified information. The national academies publish their work. Policymakers cite the result is a consensus. But it is a circle. At the center of the government side of the circle was Dr. anthony fauci. For years, Dr. fauci was not merely a public health official speaking from the nih.
▶ 0:18:23Chair Paul: He had a long-standing relationship with the national security and intelligence apparatus on biological threats, dangerous pathogens, classified life sciences research is, 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.
▶ 0:18:47Chair Paul: 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 covert origins when he approved the very funding that may have caused the pandemic virus? From the outset of the pandemic, Dr. fauci shape the conclusions.
▶ 0:19:12Chair Paul: Dozens of times, he referred to the idea that the pandemic originating in a lab was a conspiracy. It was a conspiracy theory. Dr. fauci convened the now infamous february 1 call. Some scientists on that call privately raised serious concerns about a laboratory origin. Ironically, those same scientists co-authored the proximal origin paper, which publicly dismissed the lab leak hypothesis.
▶ 0:19:40Chair Paul: One author received a 9 million dollar grant from Dr. fauci's own agency after he changed his opinion from lab leak on the private phone call to national origin in public. At the same time, Dr. fauci coordinated with the national academies on coronavirus origins as a public facing messenger. These were not independent experts reaching a consensus. They were part of the same machine, designed to reach the same conclusion.
▶ 0:20:10Chair Paul: 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 receive the truth, or a curated result. When congress asked these questions, government officials lied to our face. They classified the documents. They suppress the information.
▶ 0:20:41Chair Paul: They changed the definitions. They invoked sources and methods. They told congress only what they wanted congress to know. In 2020 three, john ratcliffe, former director of national intelligence, testified before congress with a stark warning. He said the lab leak was the only explanation credibly supported by intelligence, science, and common sense.
▶ 0:21:04Chair Paul: He warned that partisan politics and analyst disagreement with trump administration policy -- trump derangement syndrome -- had created illegitimate roadblocks to the truth. I agree. He said the covid-19 origin act, which congress passed unanimously, should finally make intelligence on covid's origins public. I could not agree more.
▶ 0:21:29Chair Paul: Despite a unanimously passed law requiring declassification of all information related to covid origins, the deep state still resists this congressional mandate. Our witness today will explain what happened inside the cia. According to his testimony, scientific analysts concluded multiple times between 2021 and 2023 that a lab leak was the most likely origin of covid-19.
▶ 0:21:56Chair Paul: Those conclusions never shaped the official narrative, never made the intelligence report. Congress was never told. It was not until after the 2024 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 cleanup operation.
▶ 0:22:23Chair Paul: This hearing is about more than one witness, one assessment, or one agency. It is about a federal apparatus that told the american people to trust the science while hiding the machinery that shaped the science. It is about an intelligence community that relied on outside experts whose conflicts were never disclosed. It is about public health officials with access to intelligence that congress has struggled to obtain.
▶ 0:22:50Chair Paul: It is 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. This is not about protecting one research grant. It is about protecting an entire network of labs, grants, intermediaries, and bureaucratic architecture quietly engineered to outlast any congressional inquiry.
▶ 0:23:18Chair Paul: After millions died, children lost years of learning, small businesses were destroyed, civil liberties were restricted, and dissenting americans were censored, the government owes its people the evidence. Our witness is testifying publicly today at great personal risk. He and other brave whistleblowers have come forward because the truth was being buried. Government secrecy cannot become government impunity.
▶ 0:23:48Chair Paul: I want to acknowledge the trump administration officials who made good on their commitment to transparency and cooperated with this investigation. The secretary of health and human services robert f to deep. The director of nih j batterers -- -- robert f kennedy. Kristi noem. They set a standard. I expect the rest of the administration to meet it. We owe the american people a complete record.
▶ 0:24:16Chair Paul: We know -- we owe every family harmed by this pandemic a government that does not hide behind secrecy and curated science when the stakes are life and death. In public, starting today. I want to note for the record that Mr. hermon is appearing after a subpoena issued by this committee on may 5, 2020 six. This is a public hearing.
▶ 0:24:45Chair Paul: 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 and 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 prior classified deposition has not been finalized and has not completed classification review.
▶ 0:25:14Chair Paul: Members and the witness should not quote from 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 witness. Will you please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony 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.
▶ 0:25:47Chair Paul: James erdman is a cia senior operations officer. He is a decorated officer with decades of intelligence and national security experience. Before joining the cia in 2013, he served with the second battalion, 75th ranger president, as a service officer at the department of state. He recently completed a joint duty assignment with the director of the office of national intelligence.
▶ 0:26:14Chair Paul: He holds a bachelor of science in biology with a minor in chemistry and has received the director of national intelligence national intelligence award, and the cia intelligence medal of merit. You are recognized for your opening statement.
▶ 0:26:31Mr. Erdman: Good morning, chairman paul and other members of the oversight committee. Thank you for the complementary introduction. And I appreciate the committee's dedication to transparency and accountability. I am a career cia operations officer.
▶ 0:26:54Mr. Erdman: As you mentioned, I was on joint duty assignment at the office of director of national intelligence, the dig, between march 2025 and april 2020 six. I was responsible for leading the investigation into covid origins and unidentified anomalous phenomenon.
▶ 0:27:20Mr. Erdman: I am here today to discuss the covid cover-up, the national security implications associated with the 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.
▶ 0:27:48Mr. Erdman: Motives are difficult to define given the scope of the review. Intentional or not, the ic's actions resulted in a cover-up, wasted resources, and a failure to properly inform policymakers.
▶ 0:28:05Mr. Erdman: 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 of mrna products, mandated by the former administration. Dr. fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional. Dr.
▶ 0:28:34Mr. Erdman: Fauci leveraged 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 covid two, and other public health experts from the past 20 plus years.
▶ 0:29:01Mr. Erdman: Some of the scientists were part of the biological sciences experts group, and office of director of national intelligence advisory body whose members receive civil funding from public health agencies.
▶ 0:29:21Mr. Erdman: The scientists influence national laboratory wmd research , finished analysis, and other intelligence matters, creating misaligned incentives and conflicts of interest, as well as counterintelligence issues.
▶ 0:29:44Mr. Erdman: Since 2000 six, the consulted part time on bio defense issues for the ic while conducting government-funded research in academic positions as well as maintaining roles in public health institutions and serving as members on the national board of science. The received funding for vaccine research.
▶ 0:30:09Mr. Erdman: Usaid's predict project, the cooperative threat reduction program, and even worked with chinese scientists on coronavirus and 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 scientists helped Dr.
▶ 0:30:38Mr. Erdman: Fauci rewrite definitions of gain of function in 2015 to stop a funding because on dangerous research. Others participated in planning an event in 2019, a coronavirus pandemic tabletop exercise curiously similar to the events that played out during the covid-19 pandemic. It was attended by Dr. fauci and individuals with ties to dni.
▶ 0:31:09Mr. Erdman: The cia and dni 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 natural origin. Following the cia's covid green book, the cia retaliated against analysts supporting the lab leak hypothesis.
▶ 0:31:44Mr. Erdman: Cia analysts were not bribed. The analysts that supported the lab leak conclusion took every administrative measure available to them to address their deep concerns regarding the analytic integrity of the finished intelligence.
▶ 0:32:02Mr. Erdman: 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. Dr.
▶ 0:32:24Mr. Erdman: Anthony fauci's influence over the covid origins analysis and the unwitting role some scientists and personnel played in the cover-up exposed by this issue was of deep concern. Failure to address the U.S.
▶ 0:32:39Mr. Erdman: Government's inability to differentiate between public health and bio defense and the oversight-resistant ecosystem of life science actives, 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.
▶ 0:33:05Mr. Erdman: Post-9/11 changes in public health and bio defense 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 bio defense 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.
▶ 0:33:41Mr. Erdman: 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 investigation. The behavior significantly implicated implementation of several eos issued during this administration.
▶ 0:34:11Mr. Erdman: The cia refused to provide information necessary to understand why analytic standards at the cia were violated. The cia illegally monitored the computer and phones of dig personnel, investigations, and contact with whistleblowers.
▶ 0:34:32Mr. Erdman: These americans were 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 digs investigation into the events which transpired between 2022 and 2023 was fired by the cia one day after meeting with the dig.
▶ 0:35:00Mr. Erdman: When the digs ceased operations, the cia also took back 40 boxes of jfk files and mk ultra 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.
▶ 0:35:23Mr. Erdman: The partial solution to dangerous gain of function has already been laid out in executive order 142 92, improving the safety and security of biological research. We need a comprehensive review of government funding, life science research, and they move back to pre-9/11 definitions of gain of functions, particularly in the ic and dhs.
▶ 0:35:50Mr. Erdman: More broadly, we need effective oversight. We must hold agencies responsible for failure to comply with executive order 14292, and you must be willing to pull the purse strings, and if necessary, convene another church committee.
▶ 0:36:10Mr. Erdman: The results of our investigation would have been impossible without whistleblowers willing to come forward. They are indispensable agents for perform.
▶ 0:36:33Mr. Erdman: Despite statutory law, agency regulation, and training requirements, whistleblowers are almost never protected. Whistleblower protections always seemed to protect the agency. Every time the cia investigates it, they coincidentally found no wrongdoing. When they identify issues, they hold the system responsible.
▶ 0:37:02Mr. Erdman: That last statement is a verbatim response from the -- from steny hoyer when the cia office of inspector general did find a shortcoming 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 was good enough.
▶ 0:37:31Mr. Erdman: 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 the mission, free from retaliation. All oig elements need to be removed from the agencies and fall under a separate entity controlled by the ic inspector general.
▶ 0:38:00Mr. Erdman: The personnel should be 1811 certified with regular doj and legislative oversight reporting responsibilities. Thank you. My written statement provides far more details related to these issues. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:38:17Chair Paul: Is it your testimony that there is still resistance from cia to comply with the law we passed to declassify the covid information?
▶ 0:38:27Mr. Erdman: Yes.
▶ 0:38:30Chair Paul: One of the things that I think is new today that I am hearing from your testimony is that from an early period of time, you believe, and the information you are aware of, is that cia scientists from an early time after the pandemic we had in 2020, 20 21, were concluding that the lab leak was the most likely hypothesis.
▶ 0:38:59Mr. Erdman: Yes, senator. I would like to offer some qualifications on that as well. A lot of the issues occurred at the interagency space, at the national intelligence council, the individuals responsible for conducting or writing down the analysis. Many of those individuals are from the cia.
▶ 0:39:28Mr. Erdman: As early as 2020, there were agencies within the ic circulating papers that said, hey, for example -- d.o.e. Circulated a paper that said all the conditions were present for a lab leak. I could go through the timeline. But my short answer is yes. Periodically throughout 2020 all the way to 2024.
▶ 0:39:57Chair Paul: What is the evidence on whether this came from a lab or came from nature? This is still important. For years, we have been asking cia to produce the scientists in a classified or public setting to discuss the arguments. I don't see any reason why the arguments should be classified.
▶ 0:40:16Chair Paul: One of the arguments that is made publicly is that the source looks like it came from a single source of rna, not 20 different types like you had with sars, 2000 three, which came from one source. Virtually everybody argues that would be a lab and not nature. Those are important scientific arguments to have. But we have not benefited from having them. We have been prevented from getting all the declassified information.
▶ 0:40:45Chair Paul: What I think is of importance today is that your testimony is that the cia scientists were colluding with this lab. This was a 90 day study in 2021, and this study was done by nic. Tell us what nic is.
▶ 0:41:04Mr. Erdman: The national intelligence council, individuals responsible for writing on virus-related issues.
▶ 0:41:13Chair Paul: They had cia scientists saying the scientific evidence looks like it came from a 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 it was contradicting what the scientists were telling them?
▶ 0:41:38Mr. Erdman: There are two questions. One is, where were the injection points. When did Dr. anthony fauci inject himself. And the other half of that question is, ok, what happened. Why was there a change in analysis? If it is ok, I will start with Dr. anthony fauci.
▶ 0:42:09Mr. Erdman: On february 3, 2020 and june 4, 2021, anthony fauci had contact with the interagency. To broadly generalize this, that contact was happily pursued within the ic. They wanted that contact.
▶ 0:42:30Mr. Erdman: He provided a curated list of subject matter experts, so it is not like he came in and said you have to do x, y, and the. He provided recommendations. It is when you look at what has already been publicly released about Dr.
▶ 0:42:48Mr. Erdman: Fauci, and what you are seeing under curtain at the ic, when you realize there is a narrative that was being generated by his contact not just with experts in the united states, but experts in australia and the u.k.. He had tried to sort of keep his hands clear of "I did not have anything to do with it.
▶ 0:43:14Mr. Erdman: In the meantime, he is pushing authors and individuals who have been in his orbit into the ic as experts. I will jump to june 2021. We as the ic happily pursued those recommendations.
▶ 0:43:34Mr. Erdman: In one email, which I will describe to you, the person in charge of leading the study -- he introduced himself to the community on what they were supposed to be doing. And then the community -- he said, listen. We have these people we should be talking to. Another very senior officer sent a direct email to him saying, considering that Dr.
▶ 0:44:01Mr. Erdman: Fauci is a public health expert, are you sure we should be relying on this? In this instance, the individual responded no. In this case, Dr. anthony fauci is a subject matter expert. However, that is directly contradicting his public testimony.
▶ 0:44:24Chair Paul: Public testimony, analyzing their potential biases or conflicts of interest -- did anyone bring up the Dr. anthony fauci approved the research, and it might not be in his interest for a conclusion that it was linked to a lab he had funded? Did anybody ever bring up he might not be an objective witness?
▶ 0:44:47Mr. Erdman: That was one example. No one made it out quite that clearly. We were piecing it together from multiple emails from multiple agencies, multiple documents. It was more subtle than that. People said this is happening. Unfortunately, they should have. It was all out there.
▶ 0:45:08Chair Paul: Your conclusion is that changing from the scientific consensus of it being from a lab to a neutral position at cia was significantly influenced by anthony fauci?
▶ 0:45:19Mr. Erdman: It was significantly influenced by anthony fauci's injecting himself into the ic. The question about what happened, particularly during the 90 day study -- we have documentation that shows that as of august 12, the cia was considering calling this a lab leak. And then that changed on august 17, 2020.
▶ 0:45:50Mr. Erdman: Unfortunately, because the cia would not provide us documentation we asked for, we have no idea why that changed.
▶ 0:45:56Chair Paul: The fbi was coming to the same conclusion that it was a lab leak. We have senator ernst.
▶ 0:46:08Sen. Ernst: Thank you, Mr. chair. Really appreciate you being here today. This is a topic for many of us for many years, and we continue to get pushback from the federal government as we are trying to uncover the truth to this matter. For years, folks who discussed a possible covid lab origin were dismissed as conspiracy theorists. They were censored.
▶ 0:46:35Sen. Ernst: Some were even fired from their jobs. If there was or is a conspiracy, then U.S. government officials and U.S.-funded scientists should be publicly questioned under oath about what they knew and when they knew it.
▶ 0:46:54Sen. Ernst: But U.S.-funded scientists somehow are still protected from being questioned publicly, even though they received millions of taxpayer dollars from nih, dhs, doe, and dod. Look, folks. I have long warned about a potential government cover-up of the truth, which our brave witness has confirmed to us today. I have called for answers from Dr.
▶ 0:47:23Sen. Ernst: Ralph merrick, an expert virologist who showed the intelligence community in january 20 20, before the american people knew about the pandemic, that "we may be on the verge of a global pandemic." yet nothing was done to share this information with the american people.
▶ 0:47:44Sen. Ernst: I exposed that the wuhan lab received $1.4 million in federal funds, fought to cut off every cent flowing to that lab, and I won on this for the taxpayers. I have not back down from fighting on -- fighting for more information on the truth of covid origins. Yet congress is still here, six years later, begging agencies to share answers and for committees to make relevant documents public.
▶ 0:48:12Sen. Ernst: We are tired of washington coverups. And if they are not our screw ups here in the U.S., why would the U.S. government cover up for the ccp and other countries? Americans would have been angry to learn in early 2020 that their government may have played a role in covid-19's creation. Would you say such thinking influenced the intelligence community to suppress a lab leak origin theory?
▶ 0:48:41Mr. Erdman: I would say there is evidence in the emails that it was part of the calculus. It is very difficult. It is more subtle. There is sort of a zeitgeist that runs underneath the analysis. I will provide a conversation I had with one of our whistleblowers.
▶ 0:49:06Mr. Erdman: I asked, and this individual is an incredibly talented scientist. I asked that individual, why don't you go forward, go public? There are a lot of reasons not to do that. A whole bunch.
▶ 0:49:24Mr. Erdman: His comment was nobody wanted the lab leak conclusion, and I am concerned that there is too many people willing to make excuses for china in this organization, for the wrong reasons. That was pervasive.
▶ 0:49:47Mr. Erdman: So the individuals we talked to -- they never said 141 one for one -- said one for one that they dislike the sitting president or managers were trying to cover up for china. But it was a pervasive undercurrent, is how they described it.
▶ 0:50:12Mr. Erdman: I think to answer your question, there is certainly reluctance to provide information that would be geopolitically destabilizing or provide ammunition for actions that maybe they thought would be unwise. Does that answer your question, senator?
▶ 0:50:41Sen. Ernst: It is troubling to hear there is an undercurrent of making excuses for china as well. Deeply troubling. We spend millions of dollars to have an early warning intelligence system, and yet today I am hearing the system may have been alerted, but no one was acting on the information. Do you think that is an accurate statement?
▶ 0:51:03Mr. Erdman: I can't speak to the health agencies. I can say the ic was aware early on that it might be an issue. Intelligence -- I don't think they sat on it. I don't think they sat on intelligence, no. That speaks to may be a broader issue with the interaction between ic elements and non-ic elements, whether there are improvements that could be made there.
▶ 0:51:33Sen. Ernst: It could have been agencies extraneous to the ic.
▶ 0:51:39Mr. Erdman: The bureaucracy is real. Every day sometimes feels like a fight to get certain things done. That is just part of working at a large organization. I am not making excuses. I'm saying from the intelligence perspective, I think they identified fairly quickly that this might be an issue.
▶ 0:52:02Sen. Ernst: Typically, we do after action reviews. Do you think this is something the U.S. government has learned from? I see you grimace. Maybe share a little bit about that. If this is system wide across the five f -- the federal government, how do we stop this from happening again? What lessons have we learned from this, if any? You are still coming forward as a whistleblower.
▶ 0:52:30Sen. Ernst: What have we taken away from this, and how do we prevent this from happening in the future, whether it is the spread of a pandemic or what happened within the agency?
▶ 0:52:39Mr. Erdman: I really don't want to go beyond ic because I am not part of the health establishment. I am not in that organization. Part of the reason the dig was pulled together as a task force -- it was a temporary tool to perform something like after action, and get at the bottom of what happened.
▶ 0:53:03Mr. Erdman: If you are asking me did we learn anything -- the problem is we did not receive support from the cia. I documented in my transcribed interview and I don't want to go into the specifics -- there were very specific lists of information we needed so we could put into context what happened. And so no, I don't think we have learned our lesson when it comes to transparency and reform.
▶ 0:53:32Mr. Erdman: We did not get the documents we needed. The committee issued 14 subpoenas requesting documents. Director gabbard did her absolute best to try to force the ic to start producing these documents. A bunch of them got sent to odeon I -- odni, but we still did not get all of them. We did not get documents from the cia.
▶ 0:54:03Mr. Erdman: The lessons in terms of transparency and reform -- I don't think those occurred. They can only occur if we actually do a full review of what happened. And there is a fair question. How long do you want to be looking backwards at covid. That is a fair question. You have limited resources, limited time, limited personnel, and we have limited experts that work within the cia, and they have forward-facing threats.
▶ 0:54:34Mr. Erdman: The reason covid is so important is that what we did wrong -- there is a much larger problem sitting on top of covid. The fact that we have these scientists -- and I am not vilifying any of these scientists who were contracted to come to the ic. We desperately need their expertise. When we invite them in, we are inviting them in because we want their help.
▶ 0:55:04Mr. Erdman: But those same scientists -- it is this ecosystem that has a lot money involved. They are involved with the national academy of sciences. The national academy of sciences also helps with our wmd policy for the U.S. government. The national academy of sciences also has a great number of chinese researchers that publish.
▶ 0:55:29Mr. Erdman: If we are not careful, we are going to have chinese researchers helping us draft U.S. wmd policy. That is not a good thing. We have got to have a threat reduction program that involves some of these scientists. Once you start cross pollinating like that, being able to tease out and provide proper oversight becomes so, so difficult. You are talking about multiple funding streams from multiple different places.
▶ 0:55:57Mr. Erdman: It is a very complex problem, covid. We need the aar. It already pointed to the virus, so maybe that is enough.
▶ 0:56:08Chair Paul: Senator ernst, one thing I would insert as far as lessons -- the scientists overseeing gain of function research cannot be the scientists receiving the money. We voted last year on a presidential commission that the scientists that overseeing gain of function would not be receiving nih grants. Anthony fauci had this enormous fiefdom and was controlling the funds.
▶ 0:56:37Chair Paul: But then there was a danger that was happening.
▶ 0:56:41Sen. Ernst: Well taken.
▶ 0:56:45Sen. Moreno: Thank you for your service to our nation. I obviously have never been in the cia. Is it easy to be a whistleblower? Is it easy to think I'm going to go outside the normal chain of command? Does it come with personal risk?
▶ 0:57:05Mr. Erdman: I do not believe whistleblower protections are sufficient.
▶ 0:57:14Sen. Moreno: Especially -- you are serving today. What is your reaction to looking at the dais and seeing there is not a solitary democrat member here? How does that make you feel?
▶ 0:57:25Mr. Erdman: My goal in being here is threefold. I want to talk about covid. I wish they were there.
▶ 0:57:36Sen. Moreno: You are serving the country. You are not partisan. This is not politics. But somehow it has become about politics because the democrats don't even want to hear the conversation about what obviously was a grave error this country made.
▶ 0:57:51Sen. Moreno: And unlike previous situations, there has never been a situation, certainly not in my lifetime, where you had decisions made that affected generations of americans, kids that were absolutely deprived of their childhood, businesses destroyed, families that were torn apart, memories they will never get back, trillions of dollars of economic loss. We should at least have a conversation that is not partisan.
▶ 0:58:16Sen. Moreno: And yet, just for the record, there is not a single, solitary democrat senator that is willing to sit in this chamber and listen to your testimony. I think that is an outrage, an insult to people like you. I will bring more levity to what I just said. In june of 20 21 -- I remember june of 2021 as something that came up during a comedy show.
▶ 0:58:42Sen. Moreno: I'm not somebody who listens to stephen colbert, but he had jon stewart on, and he said -- I am paraphrasing jon stewart. I will not deliver it with the same comedic punch. He said, my god, there has been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near hershey, pennsylvania. What do you think happened? Maybe the steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean. Or maybe it is the chocolate factory. Maybe that is it.
▶ 0:59:11Sen. Moreno: A joke talking about may be the simplest solution is may be the virus leak happened from the virus lab in the city of wuhan, or maybe this chain of events of animals mating with each other all over the world resulted in this virus. What ended up happening is that jon stewart was immediately tortured. The washington post called his joke a dangerous weapon of propaganda. They called him conspiratorial.
▶ 0:59:39Sen. Moreno: And he got massive personal backlash. That was in june of 2021. Does it turn out the chocolatey goodness came from the chocolate factory in hershey, pennsylvania?
▶ 0:59:50Mr. Erdman: Just as director radcliffe said in 2020, the chocolate factory is where the chocolate came from.
▶ 1:00:01Sen. Moreno: It is funny that we are all sitting here today because in that same torture of jon stewart, stephen colbert said that may be jon stewart was somehow a spy for senator johnson, because senator johnson was the one senator who was saying this from the very beginning and has continued to hold that accountability. I applaud senator johnson for his relentless pursuit of the truth in all of this.
▶ 1:00:29Sen. Moreno: Could we spend the last few minutes here talking about something that you mentioned which is near and dear to my heart? I think all these are important. What you said is supercritical. I applaud you for having the courage to come here with your detailed, methodical review of all this. But where is the accountability? This is what I hear from my constituents all over ohio. Great. You had a hearing. You said this. That happened.
▶ 1:00:59Sen. Moreno: But where are the people who made these decisions? How do we hold them accountable? Anthony fauci is sitting probably sipping margaritas somewhere with his multimillion dollar financial success as a result of duping the american people into putting an experimental virus vaccine in their bodies, or risk losing their jobs. He is not accountable to anybody. He is having a great life.
▶ 1:01:27Sen. Moreno: He was featured on vogue magazine. He sat there for a day trying to get beauty shots for the day, which I imagine the photographer found difficult. Where do you think we are on the path to accountability?
▶ 1:01:41Mr. Erdman: I am not with the doj so I cannot speak to prosecutions or perp walks or any of it. The first thing you mentioned -- the american public, I think -- this is my opinion, expressing myself not as a cia officer or on loan to dni. I think we really want, both democrats and republicans, to show up and cooperate on issues.
▶ 1:02:10Mr. Erdman: Part of the most important -- you all know this. The legislative branch have power of oversight. You cannot make doj prosecute anybody. You can reach across the aisle. You can try to get these people to pull the purse strings when agencies are behaving poorly.
▶ 1:02:35Mr. Erdman: From my perspective -- I don't mean to criticize anybody -- we need the legislative branch to start pulling purse strings. It has got to be with teeth if you want accountability. This forum is perfect. It is about the transparency piece. We cannot act unless people know.
▶ 1:02:58Mr. Erdman: On the accountability side, 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. We can serve everything up and it is up to doj to take action at that point. I can't speak to doj.
▶ 1:03:19Sen. Moreno: I understand that. With the american people expect at minimum is an apology. An apology for putting the country through this. Not giving them proper information. There were clearly bad actors. Mr. chairman, you talked about the conflicts of interest. The way you described it was very nice, but ultimately, it is corruption. Somebody is getting paid to give an opinion that is not fact-based. If it leads to personal gain, that is flat out corruption.
▶ 1:03:50Sen. Moreno: We don't allow that kind of corruption in our government. I think ultimately there has to be explicit accountability of individuals who profited off of the misinformation, the shaming of americans in this country.
▶ 1:04:11Chair Paul: Sen. johnson? -- senator johnson?
▶ 1:04:17Sen. Johnson: Another excellent hearing. I hear your pain and frustration about this investigation. Barely responded to generally. The nonresponse responses. Again, I appreciate your efforts. Mr. erdman, I appreciate you coming forward.
▶ 1:04:46Sen. Johnson: One thing I know as former chairman of the full committee, now as member of the permanent subcommittee on investigations, is that we do not protect whistleblowers. We have laws dating back over 100 years and government is the worst offender in terms of retaliating against whistleblowers, even though there are protections. I appreciate you doing this. I will also note -- nothing shocks me anymore with our colleagues from the other side of the aisle.
▶ 1:05:15Sen. Johnson: But I am shocked that not one of them showed up today. Only one showed up to register attendance, and then gone. I agree with you it is well past time for us to have a church committee. We are not going to get bipartisan support for a church committee. There is no curiosity on the other side about what has happened inside the deep state. That is really my question. Who is running the deep state? I have got example after example in agency after agency.
▶ 1:05:47Sen. Johnson: Very legitimate oversight requests. I subpoena documents. You don't get squat. I asked for your testimony last night. I appreciate the fact that the committee staff and chairman paul is very concerned about retaliation against you. Apparently, they did not clear your testimony here, the cia. Is that true? So you are appearing as a true whistleblower, publicly, right off the bat.
▶ 1:06:17Sen. Johnson: I will do and senator paul and staff -- we will do everything we can to prevent retaliation. What is your game plan after this? You are done with dni and the dig organization. Do you plan on going back to cia?
▶ 1:06:31Mr. Erdman: I am back at cia. I just took a couple weeks vacation. It was a long year. I took some time off. I just arrived. I've got a desk. They are talking about what comes next.
▶ 1:06:52Sen. Johnson: Originally you said I could not keep this after the hearing but now it sounds like I can keep it. I don't want to harm you. I have not had a chance to go through it yet. Should we distribute this publicly?
▶ 1:07:05Mr. Erdman: Please hold it back.
▶ 1:07:10Sen. Johnson: For the time being, I will. John ratcliffe was very helpful in using that position at dni. Now, he is director of cia. What is preventing the cia from totally cooperating with the dni?
▶ 1:07:28Mr. Erdman: I don't know.
▶ 1:07:33Sen. Johnson: Who is running this show?
▶ 1:07:34Mr. Erdman: Here is what I will say. We have requests. We have a formal process. We send those requests over. The transcript, the interview, and what those requests were. It appeared to be bureaucratic slow rolling until the government shutdown.
▶ 1:07:53Sen. Johnson: That is the technique they use. They look at every director of cia, and if they don't agree with him, this too shall pass. They wait him out. That has happened right now and both of our investigations. I am calling for a church-like commission. We will call it the paul-johnson commission. We need to figure out who runs the deep state.
▶ 1:08:18Sen. Johnson: In my final three minutes, because I held what I thought was a blockbuster hearing two weeks ago -- this is on my investigation in terms of the harms done by the covid injection. I'm going to talk about it right now because it is not being covered by the legacy media. Fox news, foxbusiness has had me on. I was supposed to be on cnn last week.
▶ 1:08:46Sen. Johnson: I sent in my report and told them that is what I wanted to talk about. They canceled the appearance. That is not why? Sure. I can do this in two minutes and 20 seconds. This is what we uncovered. This is what is being covered up by, now, the legacy media. On march 1 of 2021, Dr.
▶ 1:09:08Sen. Johnson: Peter marx, head of the organization that approves vaccines and also post marks it for safety, was given a multipage briefing by the main data analysts within fda, with the algorithm they used to analyze the vaccine adverse event reporting system. That briefing told Dr.
▶ 1:09:34Sen. Johnson: Marks that the current algorithm, because of the nature of the massive number of claims -- by the way, from 1990 until 2020, 280 deaths were reported in eves associated with the vaccine. Now it is 21,000. Nothing to see here.
▶ 1:10:02Sen. Johnson: This algorithm, moderna and pfizer close together, the way they are analyzing is going to mask safety signals. 26 days later, a new state-of-the-art algorithm, developed by the inventor of the original algorithm, was invented from senior fda officials showing 49 cases of extreme masking, including sudden cardiac death, infarction,
▶ 1:10:34Sen. Johnson: Strokes -- month after month, they continue to do this data mining and show additional safety signals. Did peter marx, did anthony fauci, did president biden go to the american public and say, hang on here? We've got some data. We've got some concerns. No. They blamed the vaccine for continuing the pandemic. We need to mandate this.
▶ 1:11:05Sen. Johnson: This is what government does. This is what the deep state does . I can't explain it all. My investigation now -- I've finally got documents. This would never have happened if we did not have documents. By the way, just that we found that email from david that -- now it is in prosecution. How many emails disappeared? We have the same types of evidence in our report.
▶ 1:11:37Sen. Johnson: We need to get to the bottom of this. I am using this moment. I need the main stream media -- cbs, abc, cnn -- to step forward and start covering what is a major scandal.
▶ 1:11:51Sen. Johnson: How many hundreds of thousands of people possibly lost their life because our fda hid the fact that there were safety signals screaming at them about the covid injection. We need to figure out who is running this deep state. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:12:14Chair Paul: I completely agree with the call for a church committee, but I will tell you how difficult it is. Church committee was 1970 5, 50 years ago. I have been trying to get the classified version of the church committee for over two years but I have been blocked by the intel committee, including someone from our own party. They have shown me a room with 400 boxes and I can go look in the boxes to see if I can find it. My staff is not allowed to go in the room.
▶ 1:12:43Chair Paul: They will not remit to me something that is 50 years old and should be discussing five for the public.
▶ 1:12:48Sen. Johnson: Maybe we should go there together. It would only take us five years to get through the boxes.
▶ 1:12:59Sen. Hawley: The senate unanimously passed legislation requiring the director of national intelligence to declassify any and all information related to potential links between the wuhan institute of virology and the origins of covid-19. I have some familiarity with this legislation because I wrote it. It cost the house unanimously. President biden signed it into law under a, I think, popular duress. Are you familiar with this law?
▶ 1:13:30Sen. Hawley: As you may recall, it said a statutory deadline. A couple of months later, the biden administration blew through. When they finally did release the report, I think we have a picture that will appear over my shoulder. It is five pages. Wait for it. Five pages. Remember the law said any and all information. Five pages heavily redacted, even the five pages. I think one of those pages was a cover note or something.
▶ 1:13:57Sen. Hawley: The executive summary, five pages -- this is according to the director of the office of national intelligence. This is any and all information related to covid-19 and the wuhan virology lab. You have been on this task force that has reviewed these documents. Is this all the information the united states government had?
▶ 1:14:19Mr. Erdman: That is
▶ 1:14:23Mr. Erdman: Will tell you a story. There was a classified report being written at the time all of this was going on. I assumed as I am reading through the documents that they would just take that classified report, which didn't look like that, and they would just redact it and because I am reading through the documents but that is not what happened. They decided to write a different paper instead of what was already --
▶ 1:14:50Sen. Hawley: You say they, who is they?
▶ 1:14:51Mr. Erdman: National intelligence council.
▶ 1:14:54Sen. Hawley: The council was at the time the law passed was doing a thorough review or a review, don't know how thorough. You have been on this task force. You have gotten a sense of if it's not five pages, how many pages worth of information would you guess the united states government was in possession of related to wuhan lab and covid possible links?
▶ 1:15:13Mr. Erdman: I can tell you that director gabbard is working through I believe 2,000 pages.
▶ 1:15:23Sen. Hawley: 2,000?
▶ 1:15:23Mr. Erdman: This is a -- the law states any and all, but there is still the requirement to run it through the different agencies to ensure that there's not some sources of methods but there's like 2,000 pages.
▶ 1:15:37Sen. Hawley: 2,000 pages. I want to show you what director haines wrote to her following this outrageous, ridiculous report. She wrote back to me and said, well, we classified, we declassified only what we could without endangering sources and methods. Only what we could. Five pages of summary that itself has redactions. The five pages have redactions. You are telling me there are literally thousands of documents.
▶ 1:16:05Sen. Hawley: Why are they hiding all of this material?
▶ 1:16:08Mr. Erdman: I can tell you that the interagency process of declassification is highly bureaucratic, and that is being worked. I think you saw just a few days ago director gabbard released some information.
▶ 1:16:22Sen. Hawley: Was the director involved in making the decision not to release the material?
▶ 1:16:27Mr. Erdman: I don't have any proof that she was involved in the direct decision. I have no emails saying that directly. But --
▶ 1:16:35Sen. Hawley: It was her office and her signature on the letter to me. It's her office that sent the five pages. She said this is what we have. This is all we have. You are telling me there were 2,000-plus documents, sthent us five.
▶ 1:16:46Mr. Erdman: The first swath of documents that was -- there are many more than that.
▶ 1:16:51Sen. Hawley: I got you, many, many more. Let me tell you what this so-called five page report said in its substance to the extent there was any. They said nothing that was researched at the wuhan lab could plausibly be a progeitor of covid. They said there was no evidence of research related incident involving wuhan employees that might have been related to the pam. -- pandemic.
▶ 1:17:16Sen. Hawley: In your experience given what you have seen, are those true statements?
▶ 1:17:23Mr. Erdman: Some of that would have to be classified, but no, they're not true. If we wanted to get into details, I don't believe that's true.
▶ 1:17:30Sen. Hawley: So the united states government first deliberately violated a law passed by congress, signed by the president that ordered them to release all information related to the wuhan lab, number one. Number two, they then violated the law again by withholding thousands of pages that they had at the time and knew were covered by the law. Number three, the conclusion so-called they released to the public are false. If that is not a cover-up, I don't know what is.
▶ 1:17:57Sen. Hawley: And if our elected officials and unelected officials in this case in the I.c. And odni, if they can get by with blatantly violating the statutes of this country and lying to the american people, I am sorry, but we don't have a democracy anymore. I don't know what it is but it's not a democracy because we, the people, aren't in charge. These people are in charge. They're lying to us every single day. You said in your opening statement that Dr.
▶ 1:18:24Sen. Hawley: Fauci, speaking much someone who is not exactly a truth teller, that dri exactly a truth teller, that drd exactly a truth teller, that drt exactly a truth teller, that drt exactly a truth teller, that drs thumb on the scale of what information the intelligence community could review when they did their initial assessments of whether or not the wuhan lab was linked to covid. What exactly did it do?
▶ 1:18:47Mr. Erdman: Let me clarify that. So he reached in and he provided this list of scientists and subject matter experts that we should talk to. It's not like he is saying you will go talk to them. He doesn't have the power to do that technically. It's just that the bureaucracy in place at the time was perfectly happy to pursue those recommendations even when there was a number of individuals who expressed concern, saying at least one for sure that said are you sure we want to do this?
▶ 1:19:18Mr. Erdman: He is a policy maker and we need to have our intelligence cycle --
▶ 1:19:24Sen. Hawley: He had a point of view, did he not?
▶ 1:19:26Mr. Erdman: He did.
▶ 1:19:27Sen. Hawley: What was that point of view?
▶ 1:19:29Mr. Erdman: He believes it's natural origin. He still does.
▶ 1:19:32Sen. Hawley: Of course. He said this over and over. He would have reason to given that he supported gain of function research to the wuhan lab, lied about it to congress, lied about it repeatedly to the chairman, as I recall. So his hands are dirty in this, and yet here he is intervening behind the scenes. It's bad enough that he is out there misleading the public of the behind the scenes, he is trying to intervene to stop our own intelligence community who are supposed to work for the public from accurately assessing the evidence. This is unbelievable.
▶ 1:20:02Sen. Hawley: And then people wonder, gee, why are the american people not trusting of elected officials? I wonder. Why are they? I will tell you why, because they're preetsedly -- we are repeatedly lied to by these people, lied to and lied to and lied to. I want to thank you, Mr. erdman, for your testimony. I just want to note we have only scratched the surface here. Thank you, Mr. chairman, for calling this hearing.
▶ 1:20:25Sen. Hawley: I want to point out, you have a witness who is saying under oath that the report that the government issued lied to the american people, that it is false. We have a big problem in this country. We have a big, big problem. We haven't begun to solve it yet. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:20:43Chair Paul: Senator moody.
▶ 1:20:44Sen. Moody: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I think this is one of the most important hearings we will hold during this administration. I think when the world -- the country is mad and I don't care if you consider yourself a blue state or red state. The country went mad and people were craving leadership, and leadership that truly was based on science, not someone that alleged they were following science and seemed to care more about controlling the public.
▶ 1:21:15Sen. Moody: I think this is one of the most important hearings and I think everyone that actually showed up today -- you see who is here, involved and taking part in this hearing -- are the ones that want on behalf of the american people, who by the way are supposed to be in charge of the united states of america, want to get to the bottom of what happened and not just because that's right so that the people that are in charge of this nation understand -- understood what happened but so that this
▶ 1:21:45Sen. Moody: Never happens again. And if we are trying to prevent a government that is trying to control a populace based on nothing, based on no justification, and making sure that that never happens again, I just want it to be very clear to everyone in this room or anyone who has taken the time to watch that cares about their country and understands what it means to protect freedom, I just want them to see who showed up today and who is participating and who has thanked you for coming out
▶ 1:22:16Sen. Moody: Bravely and disclosing these facts, what happened, and your opinion based on your years, decades of experience. I for one, hailing from the great free state of florida, florida used to be known for flamingos. We are now known for freedom.
▶ 1:22:32Sen. Moody: That is because of what took place over the last administration, and when churches were closed, when businesses were closed, when schools were closed, when people were shut up in their apartments, when families were prohibited from socializing and gathering, many were kept from their loved ones when they died, all under this guidance of government leading based on science.
▶ 1:23:01Sen. Moody: We really have to go back and question that because that cannot happen in this country and I think many of us that were in charge at the time questioned how we ever allowed that to happen and certainly in florida I am so proud, along with governor desantis, we led against that tide in many respects.
▶ 1:23:21Sen. Moody: When people were still being told to stay at home, don't let your kids go to school, don't go to church, all of these things that seemed insane right now, we didn't. We stood up for the truth. We tried our best to discern what was true, what was not. What didn't make sense. Let me tell you why things didn't make sense. First of all, you had your secretary of h.h.s.
▶ 1:23:47Sen. Moody: Which was invisible checked out, those are words of the biden administration at the time. Officials from the biden administration said secretary becerra was invisible, checked out. An unfortunate choice for the role. Then you had Dr. fauci, who came out and contradicted himself constantly. At one point he admitted later he told people, people shouldn't be walking around with masks on and later said that was because we were trying to control the supply for health care professionals. It wasn't based on any science.
▶ 1:24:17Sen. Moody: But later he told everyone to wear a mask repeatedly. The six foot rule seemed to have been just crafted out of thin air, with no basis in science whatsoever. In fact, he said that rule sort of just appeared when he testified. And that guidance on the shutdown of schools and small businesses was arbitrary and not based on any science.
▶ 1:24:45Sen. Moody: I want to make sure the american people hear that you had a government who was supposed to be limited and stay out of people's lives coming in and offering guidance, many times it was done under mandates. To close businesses, people's livelihoods, to keep children from being educated, to keep people from expressing their faith and gathering to show freedom of religion and their faith and expression.
▶ 1:25:17Sen. Moody: Unbelievable what happened during the covid years. I was so proud of my state along with governor desantis. We launched a grand jury investigation because the federal government sure wasn't doing it. And we got to the bottom of some of what was being said publicly by those that we had trusted in these positions and how that was not actually the truth and the science. That was where the name of free state of florida comes from.
▶ 1:25:47Sen. Moody: I am so glad now to be here, as one of the newest united states senators, bringing that experience, that grand jury investigation, everything that we did differently in florida and stood up to the madness because that is how the people remain in charge of their government. In the grand jury investigation that we did, we followed the evidence.
▶ 1:26:12Sen. Moody: We found that many of those policies including masking, lockdown mandates lack sufficient scientific basis and in fact caused significant harm to floriddians. The same grand jury found a pattern -- I am quoting the grand jury, a nonpartisan group acquired from the community to judge facts -- a pattern of accidentsive behavior from both big phrma and federal agencies charged with regulating them with respect to the covid vaccines.
▶ 1:26:44Sen. Moody: So it appears from everything that we found from our own investigation an unbiased, totally separate review of what was being said publicly by the federal government compared to what was actually based in science. It found that most of what was said was public health establishment fixated on controlling the public and forcing narratives rather than protecting public health or discovering the truth. And so I am grateful that you were willing to be here today.
▶ 1:27:15Sen. Moody: I know that this is under subpoena, but certainly it takes courage to be here and to be a whistleblower that can get accountability for the american people. You know, florida was years ahead of the federal government's supposed experts. We are proud of that, but this is so important. And so I want to know -- I have one question. We are getting to the what, what happened?
▶ 1:27:44Sen. Moody: We were glad that florida led on that even while people remained locked down, we were trying to git to the -- get to the answers. What happened? In all of your reviews and what you have been able to compile and what you are saying today, what is the why? Why?
▶ 1:28:00Mr. Erdman: Why did the cover-up happen? I think there's a lot of incentives, misaligned incentives that had been created because of this highly opaque and complex system of laboratories, science research. I.c. Is one component of that. Why did it happen inside the c.I.a. And inside d.n.I.
▶ 1:28:26Mr. Erdman: And inside the interagency space when they were doing the analysis over the course of four years? Part of it is iron rice bowls. Your normal bureaucratic issues where one agency has this, another agency has that. There was groupthink. You could see it happening in real time as you read from beginning to end. I will give you a couple of examples.
▶ 1:28:55Mr. Erdman: Every time there was an open source publication that came out, they're very good at grabbing that and kicking it up for the contracted scientists to take a look at and assess. The goal, it seemed, it always leaned one direction. They never took -- like they never took the publications from sorenson and doing leash who came out very early, I think it was july 2020 that one of the best papers written by open sourced by sorenson.
▶ 1:29:26Mr. Erdman: They never said wow, we have a lot here. We need to get this added in. Or Dr. steven quay who had a lot to say about covid origins. It was always one direction and because the interagency space seemed intent on push tg that way -- pushing it that way and why the interagency space? I am talking about the national intelligence council and people responsible for that. I mean, these are people who have relationships with the national academy of sciences.
▶ 1:29:57Mr. Erdman: They've got relationships with the w.m.d. Community and they're all part of the same -- I don't know -- ecosystem. The planets are all revolving around the same star. So you get group think. There's a multitude of reasons. I didn't find any smoking gun where they said well, we have to cover this up because for sure the U.S. government paid for research in wuhan, china.
▶ 1:30:29Mr. Erdman: But they were certainly well aware of the defuse proposal that had circulated. They had those products available to them. You get enough people shouting something down, it gets shouted down. That happened repeatedly. If I can take a moment, particularly about the scientists that are brought forward, I really, really want to emphasize a couple things and one of it is we can't vilify these scientists.
▶ 1:31:01Mr. Erdman: I am going to give a short anecdote and I hope I am not going over on time or anything like that. But when I got hired to the c.I.a., I can't tell you how proud I was. I really couldn't believe that they hired me. I am sure there are some friends like yeah, I can't believe it either.
▶ 1:31:23Mr. Erdman: But they hired me because they saw potential to be somebody who could recruit spies and steal secrets. That's my job. Imagine you are a scientist. Imagine the udz government -- U.S. government comes to you and says listen, sir, you are a specialist in a field no one else knows. In fact, the whole point of a ph.d.
▶ 1:31:50Mr. Erdman: Is to push beyond what's known further than anybody else in a very rarefied field. Imagine you are a scientist and the c.I.a. Comes up to you or the intelligence community comes up to you and says you are special. Not because we see potential, but because we know you're special and we need your help. We can't vilify these people who wanted to help.
▶ 1:32:17Mr. Erdman: We can, however, boy, I might be contradicting myself but the system definitely needs a look because the system has been put in place and you have these same people that we have said you are important to the I.c., we just haven't done the proper work to ensure that those people who are important to the I.c. Aren't cross-pollinated all over in other places so that they can incentivize the research we need done or the papers we need written.
▶ 1:32:44Mr. Erdman: We have to have a holistic overview and I think it's really hard to have like one agency do their review, another agency do their review, the legislative branch do their review. In this case, it is a team sport.
▶ 1:33:04Chair Paul: One answer to your question about the why, people think gosh, was there a conspiracy where all these evil people had their hands together and conspiring to do something bad? I think george carlin put it best. He said it isn't required that you come up with a conspiracy where interests converge. I think the interest is we funded a lot of dangerous research, accidents have happened. This was an accident. In all likelihood this was an accident. Even the chinese probably didn't want this to happen in wuhan. It was an accident.
▶ 1:33:34Chair Paul: But the interest is that if you funded that research for 10 years, wouldn't I logically want to ask you why? Why you did this funding. So there are dozens of people throughout government who did cover this up. Maybe hundreds. They don't even know each other necessarily but had a hand in funding this research. They've been in favor of it. It's been a big debate for 20-some-odd years, maybe longer. People think this is the first virus that got out.
▶ 1:34:01Chair Paul: One of the most -- not as much reported but one of the most famous viruses that got out was the russian flu of 1977. We are not sure where it came from but the interesting thing is, nobody over 24 got the flu, zero, not one person. Why? Because the russian flu of 1977 had the exact same r.n.a. Structure as a flu in 1953 that had been kept in a lab somewhere. How do you get an identical virus 30 years later?
▶ 1:34:31Chair Paul: Viruses mutate every couple months, like covid has. There is no way to have an identical virus unless you got it from a lab. So proof positive that the 1977 flu actually came out of a lab. An accident, once again. There is a woman who has written about this. She says that over a period of years, like 1,500 major accidents she's cataloged. So it's not only about malfeasance. It's about safety.
▶ 1:34:58Chair Paul: Some people were convinced this came from wuhan because it was a bsl-2 instead of bsl-4. Didn't have enough safety precautions but ien the -- even the safest one still has accidents so maybe some of these experiments we ought to reconsider whether we do them.
▶ 1:35:17Sen. Moody: Thank you, Mr. chairman. It goes to show it's helpful to have a doctor as a chairman. You could also be a witness.
▶ 1:35:24Chair Paul: Thank you. We will conclude quickly. I will give senator johnson another chance if you have another question.
▶ 1:35:32Sen. Johnson: I've got a quick question. Then I want to go someplace else. In september 2023, we apparently had kravment -- had a c.I.a. Whistleblower come forward. Six analysts were bribed to change this analysis, is that true?
▶ 1:35:51Mr. Erdman: No. There's some clarifications on that. What is true -- thank you for bringing up this question, senator johnson. This is one of the things I wanted to make sure the record was corrected. So, if I have just a few minutes to talk through this, there was new information that came out in 2022 and it forced the community to try and conduct a relook. There were 10c.I.a.
▶ 1:36:18Mr. Erdman: Scientists, 10 that wanted to go ahead and do a covid relook. On that team there were seven subject matter experts with lab experience, medical experience, and so they began their relook.
▶ 1:36:42Mr. Erdman: And by the time they wrote their paper, they wrote a paper and they said we are assessing this as a lab leak. Eight of the 10 according to multiple whistleblowers, eight of the 10 were definitely leaning in on lab leak. They sent that paper, that draft paper up to the weapons and counterproliferation center front office and said take a look.
▶ 1:37:10Mr. Erdman: And magically, a new report shows up that allegedly contradicted this -- the information that had come in earlier that year. The multiple people we spoke to said yeah, it didn't really contradict it. But they were told go back to the drawing board and do a reassessment. So the interagency got involved. They were having discussions. They go back to the drawing board.
▶ 1:37:37Mr. Erdman: And by the time 2023 rolls around, they have got their answer. They say six of the seven technical people on that team, 10 people on the team, six of the seven technical experts say yes, we still think it's a lab leak. They were sticking to their guns. Management changed the analytic line. They changed the conclusion it a nonconsensus call.
▶ 1:38:05Mr. Erdman: Actually worse than that, they said that the exact words were -- I don't want to get this wrong. Excuse me. We may never precisely know the origin of sars covid. Precisely is not a term analysts use.
▶ 1:38:33Mr. Erdman: They use low confidence, medium confidence, yes, no. Precisely is a word you use when you want to deliberately end discussion because do you know how many resources we would need to precisely know the origin?
▶ 1:38:50Sen. Johnson: If the chairman will indulge me a bit more, there were no bribes. This was a management decision, they overrode what the -- ok.
▶ 1:38:58Mr. Erdman: The financial piece needs to be looked into because they did receive an e.p.a. They got it.
▶ 1:39:04Sen. Johnson: So it may be true, then?
▶ 1:39:07Mr. Erdman: No. Let me be clear. There were no bribes. They received an exceptional performance award. They were upset with it and it was not a bribe. But what I will say --
▶ 1:39:18Sen. Johnson: Ok, rewarded for it.
▶ 1:39:19Mr. Erdman: They didn't know they were going to get it.
▶ 1:39:21Sen. Johnson: I got you. I got you. Y stawnden -- I understand the distinction. One question. Just received this from the c.I.a. Director of public affairs. The committee acted in bad faith by subpoenaing an agency officer for testimony today without notifying c.I.a. Despite having already obtained closed door testimony from the individual previously, the witness testifying today is not appearing as a whistleblower in pursuit of the truth but in response to the subpoena issued by chairman paul.
▶ 1:39:49Sen. Johnson: This proceeding amounts to nothing more than a dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing as the c.I.a. Has assessed covid-19 most likely originated from a lab leak. I am calling on c.I.a. Director ratcliffe and this person to apologize to chairman paul and this committee. This is not political theater.
▶ 1:40:10Sen. Johnson: I have years and years and years of built-up frustration of agencies like the c.I.a., department of justice, the f.b.I., h.h.s. Snubbing our oversight, giving us the big middle finger. That leads me to my question. You talked about how proud you were. I can imagine that. My belief is I would say most people serving in government, all these agencies r doing good work.
▶ 1:40:40Sen. Johnson: They're patriots. Why aren't there more people like you? You saw josh hawley -- senator hawley's the five page snub, the five page middle finger saying any and all, this is it. People inside the agencies know that's not the truth. They know that is a big, fat lie.
▶ 1:41:05Sen. Johnson: What happens inside the agency that good americans, patriotic americans, people who believe in democracy, witness that and realize the agency they're working for is lying boldface to legitimate congressional oversight, legitimate congressional investigations, to the american people. What is causing this?
▶ 1:41:31Mr. Erdman: Two answers. One, we need more leaders like director gabbard, who pulls together a task force of people to pursue this despite the difficulty in wrangling agencies to do the right thing. I think the second thing I will say is, it's a minority of officers. Most of the people join the c.I.a. Are barrel chested freedom fighters. They're out there wanting to do the right thing.
▶ 1:42:04Mr. Erdman: As you matriculate upwards into the bureaucracy, I just think that it gets easier and easier to find people who are more willing to get along. You know, if we want to link this back to covid, you had a bunch of refuseniks out there who said no.
▶ 1:42:24Mr. Erdman: They were trying to push these people out, and what you really need in these organizations -- you can't have the whole organization saying no to everything because nothing gets done. But you got to retain the people who are sometimes a little more difficult to deal with, more willing to say no over and over, and I think we have created a milk toast bureaucracy.
▶ 1:42:51Mr. Erdman: When I first joined the agency, the chiefs of offices have a -- had a lot of power. Then modernization happened. They watered everything down. The accountability piece has to be there. Other with awise this will keep happening.
▶ 1:43:08Sen. Johnson: I appreciate you coming forward. I am calling on director ratcliffe and the communications person, this committee, this chairman needs an apology. This is not political theater. This is serious oversight work. This is what the american people need to see and I wish our democrat colleagues had any level of curiosity what is happening inside the deep state. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:43:28Chair Paul: Thank you. I completely concur. I would also like to respond to the c.I.a. Spokesman. They say we have already obtained closed door testimony. Closed door testimony doesn't provide oversight. Public testimony provides oversight. We have asked them for public testimony and for oversight. We would love to have the scientists who the six or seven scientists that were commissioned to look at this. We would love to see their report. Why would we not be allowed to see their report?
▶ 1:43:56Chair Paul: I can't even read that in private but that should be public. If there are sources and methods, mark them out, redact them. But we should be able to see that. But for them to have the gall to say we allowed the witness to testify in private and that should be enough, no, you were told by congress unanimously to declassify this material and you send us five pages. Imagine how many -- you mentioned maybe 2,000 pages. D.o.e. Has a report, that's got to be 40 or 50 pages.
▶ 1:44:26Chair Paul: The base documents are probably run into the hundreds of pages just for that one report. They did a great analysis of this but still most of that is not available to the public. Why does it need to be available? Because this is going to happen again and we need to be prepared. We need to talk about it. One of the other things we didn't get to in this hearing but we need to talk to, how do you prepare for the next pandemic? One of the things that worked was antibodies. We need to talk about how we can produce them again, how to quickly get started on things like that.
▶ 1:44:57Chair Paul: What worked and what didn't work? Masks didn't work. Six feet of distancing, there was no science. They say follow the science. Yet it looks like everything that happened at the c.I.a. Was the politicians overruling the scientists. The scientists were concluding this came from the lab, from a lab leak in all probability. The politicians were overturning them, once at 2:00 in the morning.
▶ 1:45:19Chair Paul: That is one of the takeaways from this, is that yes, follow the science and the scientists and that the scientists need to not have a conflict of interest which leads me to the final point I will make before we conclude. I applaud the trump administration for an executive order saying no more gain of function. It is head and shoulders above anything the biden administration really didn't do much of anything on this. The trump administration is trying to live by that.
▶ 1:45:45Chair Paul: The reason it won't work for everyone is that people who have a weaselly way with words, say anthony fauci will come back into play and half of his lieutenants probably still work over there. One of them will get in power again and all they will say is oh, creating that new virus that grows 10 times faster and grows better in human cells, that's not gain of function because that's what anthony fauci was doing. He was still doing the gain of function research.
▶ 1:46:13Chair Paul: He was just saying oh, the way I look at the definition, that's not really. So we do need a commission and what I propose is the risky research review act, a presidential commission. It will have scientists on it. They will be experts. But they will not be currently in the employ of government competing for grants. I think that is a conflict of interest. They have to be people outside of it. They also will be people who are national security experts as well.
▶ 1:46:42Chair Paul: We have to look at the list of things. One scientist ordered off the internet under biden's policy. He ordered snippets of d.n.a. From here to here, chopped them up, made the spanish flu. He told the f.b.I. He was doing it because he wanted to prove a point. He didn't create the infectious portion of the flu but he said look, I can do it by ordering d.n.a. There are a lot of things that have to be addressed and unfortunately it's somehow a partisan issue.
▶ 1:47:09Chair Paul: I want to applaud you for your courage in coming forward. You did come forward at the response of a subpoena. That is a lawful subpoena and I see no reason that anyone should try to punish you. If anybody does try to punish you, I can promise you that we will defend you. Thank you very much.
▶ 1:47:29Mr. Erdman: Thank you.
▶ 1:47:30Chair Paul: We are adjourned. I would like to thank our witness for joining us here today to share his testimony and expertise to the ke. The -- committee. The record for the hearing will remain open until 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, may 13 for the submission of statements and questions for the record. The hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.