WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced the Committee subpoenaed fourteen agencies from the outgoing Biden-Harris administration in connection with the origins of COVID-19 and taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research. These subpoenas were issued under the Committee’s rules in force at the time, without objection from the minority. Committee rules unanimously adopted for the 119th Congress provide the Chairman authority to issue such subpoenas on his own directive. The subpoenas, sent on January 13, 2025, build upon the Committee’s joint investigation of national security threats posed by high-risk biological research and technology in the U.S. and abroad. The Committee held bipartisan hearings examining oversight of taxpayer-funded high-risk virus research, the first full Senate Committee hearing on the origins of COVID-19, and overwhelmingly passed Dr. Paul’s Risky Research Review Act.
The list of agencies includes the National Institutes of Health, Department of State, United States Agency for International Development, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“In the wake of Anthony Fauci’s preemptive pardon, there are still questions to be answered. Who at NIH directed funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and why was the proposal not scrutinized by the P3CO safety committee? For four years, I have requested records from the NIH and other agencies on all deliberations regarding the decision to skip oversight by the safety committee only to be stonewalled,” said Chairman Paul. “Today, I’m announcing subpoenas were sent from the Committee to NIH and 13 other agencies regarding their involvement in risky gain-of-function research. The goal of the investigation will be to critique the process that allowed this dangerous research, that may have led to the pandemic, to occur in a foreign country under unsafe protocols and to ensure that there is sufficient oversight and review going forward, making sure a mistake of this magnitude never happens again.”
Over the last four years, Dr. Paul has sent dozens of requests to agencies requesting critical records related to the origins of COVID-19 and gain-of-function research, many of which are not classified, only to be met with obstruction, including blanket refusals or page-after-page redactions. As part of his efforts, last year, Dr. Paul obtained documents indicating at least fifteen federal agencies considered proposals for the risky DEFUSE project. The DEFUSE project proposed inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.
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