The Trump administration has recovered a cell phone and hard drives used by Dr Anthony Fauci during the Covid pandemic, the president’s FBI chief has revealed.
Speaking Thursday on the Joe Rogan Experience, FBI director Kash Patel described the discovery as ‘a great breakthrough’ in the government’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the pandemic and the federal response.
Patel said investigators had long struggled to locate the devices Fauci used while serving as chief medical advisor to the White House — records that could shed light on key decisions surrounding lockdowns, mask mandates, and ties between Fauci’s former agency and the Wuhan laboratory central to the lab leak theory.
During the episode — where Patel shared a cigar with Rogan and touched on topics ranging from Covid to UFOs — he revealed that the FBI had recovered the phone and hard drives just days before the interview was recorded.
Patel did not clarify when the phone was in use, how investigators verified its connection to Fauci, or how the devices were obtained. Nor did he disclose what the FBI’s ‘multiple investigations’ into the pandemic’s origin have uncovered so far.
It is unclear exactly when the phone was used and how they verified it belonged to Fauci. Patel did not specify how they seized it or what the team’s ‘multiple investigations’ thus far on the origins of Covid have found.
He also warned against drawing premature conclusions, noting that ‘everything’s not necessarily in there’ and that potentially relevant data may have been erased.
Still, Patel called the discovery ‘a victory for the American people’ and said his team is actively reviewing the contents of the devices.
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