Tag: china

Is Taiwan’s President Playing With Political Fire?

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (William Lai) appears to be missing signs from multiple sources that he lacks both international and domestic support for pursuing a more assertive policy regarding the island’s de facto independence.  Taipei heavily depends on two protectors, Japan and the United States, for firm political support against Beijing’s periodic bullying tactics.  In the event of a military crisis, Taiwan would be even more reliant on those two powers for armed defense.

However, Tokyo and Washington seem to be moving in opposite directions with respect to their longstanding, albeit informal, security commitment to Taipei.  With the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide election victory in February 2026, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi received a popular mandate for a more hardline policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding Taiwan and other issues.  The election outcome reinforced her already strong personal preference.

The trend in the United States appears to be quite different.  Throughout his first term, President Donald Trump was one of Taiwan’s strongest backers, both diplomatically and militarily.  Indeed, by the end of his term, U.S. security ties with Taiwan were the strongest they had been since Washington switched formal diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

But Trump has embraced a noticeably more cautious stance on the Taiwan issue since the start of his second term.  The administration’s discontent with Taipei’s trade and investment policies were especially evident.  Even as president-elect, Trump had accused the Taiwanese government of illegally discriminating against American firms, especially in the arena of advanced computer chips and other cutting-edge electronics.  He also continued to hector Taipei to assume a greater share of the financial burden of Taiwan’s own defense instead of continuing to free ride on U.S. military exertions.  The incoming president appeared to be more than a little annoyed at Washington’s longstanding client.

Indeed, Trump seems to regard stable and cooperative bilateral relations with the PRC as a significantly higher priority than Washington’s relations with Taipei.  That became quite evident during and immediately after the May 2026 summit between Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping.  Xi cautioned his counterpart not to let the United States become too supportive of Taiwan and allow Lai’s government to pursue reckless initiatives.  The adverse consequences of such excessive tolerance, the PRC leader emphasized, could be most unfortunate.  Noticeably, Trump did not push back with defiant rhetoric stressing Washington’s longstanding firm support for Taipei.  Instead, shortly after the summit, he explicitly warned Lai not to push the envelope regarding formal independence.

Hawkish analysts in the United States, led by former national security adviser John Bolton and the editors of the Wall Street Journal, openly accused Trump of insufficient support for Taiwan.  They pressured the administration to accelerate U.S. arms sales to Taipei and increase the quantity and quality of the weapons in future aid packages.

Not only does Lai’s government need to be uneasy about firmness of the Trump administration’s security commitment to Taiwan, but also domestic support for a more conciliatory policy toward Beijing appears to be rising.  The Kuomintang Party (KMT), the principal opposition to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is increasingly vocal in calling for a less risky approach to cross-strait relations.  Not surprisingly, Beijing is enthusiastically encouraging that trend.  PRC officials repeatedly remind the Taiwanese people that tensions were far milder during the administration of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s last KMT president, who governed the island from 2008 to 2014.  During his administration, cross-strait trade and tourism soared and the two capitals signed numerous agreements.

Beijing’s attempt to revive that cooperative atmosphere was evident when Xi and other prominent PRC figures accorded KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun an extremely cordial reception during her April 2026 visit to the mainland.  Cheng reciprocated with a highly conciliatory tone during her interview with the South China Morning Post the following month.  She explicitly contrasted the calm years experienced during Ma’s presidency with the acute tensions characterizing Lai’s administration.  During the former period, Cheng stated, “cross-strait relations were characterized by very friendly exchanges and were entirely free of major issues. At that time, we enjoyed significant space for international participation.” In contrast, “the nearly 10 years that followed have seen cross-strait relations rapidly deteriorate to the point of a perilous and dreadful prospect of war. This has created a sense of extreme danger, with the situation appearing to be on the verge of a breakout.”

Her strong implication was that a new KMT presidency would resume the cooperative policies that Ma had pursued.  Indeed, the KMT has already seized multiple opportunities to thwart Lai’s policy agenda.  As part of a broader opposition coalition that controls the national legislature, the party has scored some significant successes.

Taiwan is deeply divided politically.  Lai and his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have a strong, vocal cadre of supporters.  But other Taiwanese people have become very uneasy about the surge of military tensions in the Taiwan Strait that has typified the last 6 years of DPP rule.  Restless Taiwanese voters may seek a return to the less confrontational style of the KMT.

The overall situation is murky.  One point is clear, however.  Lai lacks a strong domestic mandate to continue his confrontational posture toward Beijing.  Nor does he seem to have a united front between Japan and the United States in favor of his policies.  Tokyo may back him, given Takaichi’s attitude, but the Trump administration’s waffling raises major questions about Washington’s stance.  Lai would be wise to beat a tactical political retreat and seek to make the Taiwan issue as quiescent as possible during the remainder of his term.

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Hollywood Libs Pour Love on Beijing, Tout China as ‘First Petro-Zero Economy,’ But Facts Show Different Story

It’s hardly a new phenomenon, sadly, when Hollywood stars kiss up to China. Usually, they don’t even try to bother letting facts get in the way.

Ah, but that’s where Edward Norton and Ted Danson went wrong. The “Fight Club” and “Cheers” star decided to simp for Beijing’s energy policy on the latter’s podcast this week, with the two libs declaring that China was on its way to being the “first petro-zero economy.”

The problem there: Not only is China not there yet, it’s the world’s biggest carbon-emitter and its largest user of coal, and it’s only getting worse.

But, you know, other than that…

Norton, apparently not terribly bright without imaginary friend Brad Pitt along with him, was the one who made the “first petro-zero economy” quote in a condemnation of “American exceptionalism,” because apparently exceptionalism equals renewables, or something.

“They are going to be the first electro-superpower,” he said of China.

“Which we could have been,” Danson interjected. “And now we’re going to have to buy it from them when this [Donald Trump] goes away and we come to our senses. We won’t have that industry like China does.”

Norton agreed.

“And by the way, it’s both sides of the aisle,” Norton said. “In the state of California, we have now the most regressive policy toward residential solar, distributed solar collection, and storage… but even under Gavin Newsom.”

Of course, this is because you can’t build a millimeter of air in California without 62 different permits, and you basically can’t change a lightbulb without changing a law, but one digresses. When the People’s Republic of Sacramento is being brought forth as an argument as to why centrally planned Chinese energy policy is kicking our butts, it’s hard to take you seriously.

As Norton went on to point out, “This is a state that should be energy independent… This is a state that should have gigawatts of residential distributed solar.”

To be fair, he gives both Florida and Texas — under Republican governors — credit for getting stuff done. But then he says that “if you get to travel” to other places — assumedly like China — you get to see that stuff can get done on green energy.

“We have this enduring narrative of American exceptionalism, like of, America’s ‘alpha,’ of America’s cultural superiority,” a rambling Norton said.

“And the question is, and I don’t think people fully grasp the degree to which we’re going to ghettoize ourselves as an energy state, in terms of education, in terms of health. We’re not anywhere near the top of what other people are experiencing. And if we embrace this idea of pride in regression, where is that going to take us? It’s not going to take us into a place that we’re happy about for our kids.”

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China’s Expanding Biological Warfare Capabilities: Fueled by Military-Civil Fusion and AI

U.S. intelligence assessments warn that China is combining artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and military-civil fusion in ways that could significantly expand its biological warfare capabilities.

The United States government has long assessed that China operated an offensive biological weapons program from the early 1950s through at least the late 1980s. Two facilities in Beijing and Lingbao City, according to the State Department, weaponized ricin, botulinum toxin, anthrax, plague, cholera, and tularemia during that period. China acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention on November 15, 1984, which prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons.

Beijing has consistently maintained it has never possessed such weapons and is in full compliance. The State Department’s position, however, is that China likely continued operating an offensive program after signing the convention and that the earlier program was never verified as dismantled, a requirement the treaty imposes on all signatories. Beijing canceled a bilateral BWC-related meeting with Washington in early 2022 and has declined to provide the treaty’s required disclosures.

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Sen. Rand Paul: ‘Without Question’ Fauci Directed U.S. Funds to Wuhan for Gain-of-Function Research

“Without question” former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci directed U.S. tax dollars to the Wuhan lab in China, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.

Paul discussed the recent announcement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that Tulsi Gabbard released a trove of evidence that Fauci lied to Congress and directed U.S. funding for gain-of-function research linked to Big Pharma’s pursuit of “universal vaccines.”

Referring to the 120 biolabs in 30 countries (including Ukraine) for which Gabbard revealed “new evidence of longstanding United States government funding,” Paul said, “What I specifically want to know is what exactly the experiments are, because the establishment, the defenders of Anthony Fauci, said this is just a vaccination program for brucellosis for cows.”

“I don’t know. It seems like there might be more there. Why are we doing this in 30 different countries? Why are we doing this in countries that have wars going on? You know, it’s spread throughout a lot of places that you would think on a normal day would be at risk for some kind of military overthrow or having these pathogens released. So I think the real answer is going to be in the details of what the experiments are,” the senator said.

Paul said Fauci and his allies, however, argue that it is not gain-of-function research.

“People need to realize that this experimentation is so dangerous, and often farmed out to third world countries in obscure places — because here we have more scrutiny, and here people would be going, you know, not only are they torturing beagles, or whatever they do in Tunisia — they may also be doing research with viruses, creating viruses that don’t exist in nature, and then running them through animal models that have human lungs, and training the virus to be more adaptable to humans, which is what we think happened with COVID,” he said, describing these as “incredibly dangerous experiments” that “don’t have any value.”

“We’ve never really produced any kind of vaccine or any treatment from them. And making an animal virus into a human virus is not that hard to do, but we certainly shouldn’t be funding it,” he said.

When asked about the claim that Fauci “directed U.S. taxpayer dollars to gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China,” Paul replied, “Without question, he did.”

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Is This Beijing’s 9/11 Moment?

The Chinese Communist Party has always insisted its leaders are humble servants of the people. Selfless. Frugal. Living only to serve the masses. Xi Jinping’s father tended pigs in one of Mao’s campaigns. Xi himself spent years in a cave. (We’re all the heroes of our own origin story.)

But soon, the world may get the truth.

A U.S. intelligence law now requires the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense to produce a report and post it publicly online before December 2026. It will detail the personal wealth, financial holdings, and business interests of Xi Jinping and the rest of the Politburo Standing Committee. And not just the top seven. The full Politburo. The 25 most powerful communists on Earth. Their fortunes will laid out for everyone to see.

Here’s why that matters. A 2024 Congressional Research Service report already estimated Xi’s family had amassed at least $376 million in investments, including an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth company worth more than $311 million, plus roughly $707 million in hidden wealth tucked among relatives. Most of it was parked with his sister, her husband, and their daughter. Funny how that works.

And that’s the lowball estimate. Back in 2012, the New York Times documented $2.7 billion in hidden riches held by the family of then-Premier Wen Jiabao. China’s response? It blocked the Times’ website for years, an action that I think proved that the report was definitely totally baseless.

But I mean, so what if Xi Jinping’s family is worth over a billion dollars, right? Doesn’t America have its own billionaire leader? One who’s absolutely not ashamed to brag about how “really rich” he is?

Yes, but it’s not the same. Not when Xi Jinping claims to be a humble servant of the people. At least Trump never claimed that.

A China commentator called this wealth the Communist Party’s “Achilles’ heel.” And he’s right. The CCP’s entire claim to legitimacy rests on the fiction that its leaders are humble men of the people. The whole con collapses the second ordinary Chinese citizens see how staggeringly rich their “servants” really are.

Which brings us to the catch. The intelligence community has dragged its feet on this same thing before: This report was supposed to be published a year ago, and it was. And IT SUCKED. It was released in March 2025 (shortly after Trump took office), and it was only four pages long. It barely mentioned Xi Jinping, and didn’t try to dig very hard into the investments he’d supposedly divested from. Very disappointing.

So will the real report actually land in December? Will it have teeth? Or will it be four more pages of stuff people already knew?

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A CIA Senior Official Personally Stopped Analysts From Concluding COVID Came From the Wuhan Lab.

40% off through July 4th because the truth deserves to come out on America’s 250th birthday. Subscribe now.

This is not a theory anymore. It is a documented fact with a paper trail.

When CIA analysts were privately concluding in the earliest days of the pandemic that the furin cleavage site in the COVID virus looked consistent with gain of function modification, a senior official at the CIA’s Weapons and Counterproliferation Mission Center personally intervened to stop them from shifting to a lab leak finding.

Not bureaucratic inertia. Not competing evidence. A person. Making a decision. To stop the conclusion the evidence was pointing toward.

On June 4th 2021 that same CIA center briefed Fauci on classified COVID origins intelligence from the President’s Daily Brief. During that briefing Fauci steered the agency toward consulting scientists who had publicly advocated for a natural origin. The scientists he recommended were the ones who had already staked out the position he needed them to hold.

Meanwhile a pre-pandemic Department of Energy warning to Fauci’s own agency about the risks of the Wuhan Institute of Virology research apparently never reached the analysts tasked with investigating the virus’s origin. The people investigating whether the lab caused the pandemic were never told their own government had already flagged that lab as dangerous before the pandemic started.

Then when a whistleblower filed a formal complaint alleging that classified intelligence contradicted Fauci’s sworn testimony to Congress, the Biden DNI’s office routed it not to an independent inspector general but to HHS Secretary Becerra, Fauci’s own boss, who had already indicated the matter was considered.

The FBI told Congress it had interviewed a key witness before reaching its lab leak conclusion. ODNI’s own records show that interview happened months after the FBI had already made its call. And when finally interviewed the witness said nothing about COVID origins at all.

This is not incompetence. Incompetence is random. This is a pattern running in one direction consistently protecting one man from accountability for five years.

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Alibaba Sues Pentagon to Remove ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label

Chinese tech titan Alibaba filed suit against the U.S. Department of War on Wednesday, arguing there was “no basis in fact or law” for the Pentagon to label it as a “Chinese military company” earlier this month.

The Department of War maintains a list of companies that perform services for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, known as the “1260H List” after the legislation that created it. Since 2021, the list has been updated and refined to paint a full picture of China’s fusion between “private” firms and its military-intelligence complex.

The Pentagon added several big corporate names to the list on June 8, including Alibaba. The listed companies, and the Chinese government, objected to the designations as unfair and arbitrary.

“The U.S. should stop its wrong practice and create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies,” the Chinese embassy in Washington said, as soon as the updated 1260H list was announced.

Alibaba was particularly aggressive in claiming that it was “not part of any military-civil fusion strategy,” and immediately declared its intention to “take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company.”

Alibaba made good on that threat with a petition to the San Jose division of the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. Another Chinese firm, WuXi AppTec, filed its own challenge in the District of Columbia on June 11.

Both Chinese companies claimed they have suffered damages from what they viewed as an unfair designation. Alibaba said it was losing business partners in America, which could severely hinder its U.S. ventures.

A key issue in the lawsuit was Alibaba’s challenge to the Pentagon’s claim that the company is linked to China’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

SASAC is an agency controlled directly by the powerful State Council of China. It manages the “shares” owned by the Chinese Communist government in partly-independent companies, as well as assets that are fully owned by the state.

When Alibaba was added to the 1260H list, the Pentagon said it was “indirectly affiliated” with SASAC, while its ties with MIIT make it a “military-civil fusion contributor to the Chinese defense industrial base.”

Alibaba’s suit contents it is merely “regulated” by those agencies, not “affiliated” with them, and it has no choice about complying with their regulations.

“The relationship is no different from Alibaba’s dealings with United States government agencies. A regulator is not an affiliate,” the company contended.

The Chinese company further claimed its designation interferes with its First Amendment rights, because lobbyists that work for companies on the 1260H list can be restricted from doing business with the Department of War.

“The designation thus does not merely impose commercial costs – it strips Alibaba of its ability to speak, to petition the government through its chosen representatives,” the petition said.

On Monday, the Chinese government added ten American firms to its export control list, seemingly in retaliation for Alibaba and other firms being placed on the 1260H list.

Chinese state media said the move was “a response to Washington’s repeated weaponization of unilateral sanctions and entity lists to suppress Chinese enterprises, including its groundless addition of Chinese firms to its so-called military-industrial entity list.”

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China Eyes Iran’s Postwar Reconstruction In Bid To Lock Up Future Oil Supplies

Beijing is positioning itself to lead the post-war reconstruction effort in Tehran – a move analysts suggest could secure China long-term access to critical Iranian oil reserves.

The diplomatic groundwork was laid during a recent meeting in New Delhi between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Nikkei Asia. The talks underscore China’s broader strategy to expand its economic and diplomatic footprint in the Middle East amid the vacuum left in the wake of one failed US regime change and occupation war after another.

According to the report, Wang signaled Beijing’s long-term commitment to the Islamic Republic in the wake of prior weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombing, stating that: “China will continue to provide assistance to Iran while supporting reconstruction and peacebuilding efforts in the region.”

To date, China’s official involvement has largely centered on humanitarian logistics – at least according to its public-facing narrative.

This includes an upcoming deployment of emergency medical supplies to Lebanon, following recent Israeli military strikes in the country. However, observers note that the transition from humanitarian relief to large-scale infrastructure development is a key mechanism for Beijing to solidify energy security.

Nikkei Asia has issued the following commentary on China’s long-term plans in the Middle East:

Some observers argue that the U.S.-Iran war has strengthened Beijing’s presence in the Middle East. Rumi Aoyama, a professor at Japan’s Waseda University specializing in Chinese diplomacy, called China a “central hub where information on the situation in the Middle East was concentrated.”

China has dialogue channels with both Washington and Tehran, and it enjoys friendly ties with mediator Pakistan as an arms supplier. The Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers frequently visited China during negotiations on ending the war to report on the situation.

The Iran war may also have worked to Beijing’s advantage in its dealings with Washington. With the U.S. prioritizing that conflict, it has been forced to ease up its pressure on China with regard to security and trade.

Yet Beijing has still welcomed the memorandum of understanding toward ending the war because stability in the Middle East is crucial for its energy security. Higher fuel and material prices caused by the war have dealt a blow to the Chinese economy.

Tehran, facing severe economic devastation and isolation from Western markets, has welcomed the Chinese overtures. High-level Iranian officials have made it clear they view Beijing not merely as an investor, but as a strategic anchor – akin to how defense ties with Russia have rapidly improved.

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China’s “Ethnic Unity” Law: A Framework for Forced Assimilation

China’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress was submitted to the National People’s Congress on September 8, 2025, passed by a vote of 2,756 to 3 with three abstentions, signed by Xi Jinping on March 12, 2026, and takes effect July 1, 2026. The 62-article law codifies Xi’s sinicization policies and extends their reach into every sector of Chinese society, and beyond China’s borders.

The law also applies to foreign nationals living in or visiting China, who could now be punished or possibly jailed for advocating freedom for Tibet or independence for Taiwan. The law’s preamble frames China as a civilization with more than 5,000 years of history that has forged “a unified multi-ethnic nation” under the CCP. This is despite the fact that China has 56 recognized ethnic groups and five ethnic autonomous regions: Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Ningxia. Several of these regions have movements seeking independence or greater autonomy.

China also includes Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region whose residents have mounted sustained resistance to Beijing’s encroachment on political freedoms. Taiwan, meanwhile, already functions as an independent democratic country despite lacking official international recognition.

Its Chapter II mandates fostering identification with the “great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics” through patriotic education, official historical narratives, and promotion of Chinese cultural symbols. Article 14 directs authorities to “establish and highlight … Chinese cultural symbols” in public facilities, architecture, and tourist sites, including in the naming of places.

The law imposes ideological obligations on a sweeping range of actors, including public employees, mass organizations, enterprises, public-service institutions, industry groups, religious institutions, neighborhood committees, and the military. Under Article 20(2), parents and guardians are required to “educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party” and are forbidden from teaching minors “concepts detrimental to ethnic unity and progress.”

The provision reinforces existing law. The CCP’s 1982 Document 19 banned religious education among minors, a prohibition the U.S. State Department confirms remains in force: children younger than 18 are prohibited from participating in religious activities and receiving religious education, even in schools run by religious organizations, and the law mandates the teaching of atheism in schools.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) has documented enforcement of these prohibitions against minority communities specifically, with Uyghur and Tibetan children, among whom religion and ethnic identity are inseparable, subject to the strictest application.

Language policy is a central mechanism that builds on previous restrictive legislation. In December 2025, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee revised the Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language, originally adopted in 2000. The revision removed a provision that had allowed minority languages to be used as the medium of instruction in schools, declaring such education “no longer necessary.” The changes took effect on January 1, 2026.

A years-long trend of replacing Mongolian-, Tibetan-, and Uyghur-medium instruction with Mandarin was thereby codified into law. Students in those communities are now permitted to study their mother tongue only as a standalone class, while all other subjects are taught in Chinese.

The March 2026 ethnic unity law reinforced and expanded that framework. It codifies the predominance of Standard Chinese (Putonghua) in public life, sets a goal of preschool-level Mandarin proficiency, and requires Chinese characters to be displayed more prominently than minority scripts wherever both appear.

The CECC found that the law promotes Mandarin-language instruction for ethnic minority children beginning in preschool. It also embeds ideological education prescribing a single “correct” understanding of history, ethnicity, culture, and religion as defined by the CCP.

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CIA Official Confirms Agency Flip-Flopped Over COVID-19 Origins Over Five-Day Period

Over the span of five days in 2021, the CIA abruptly changed its opinion on the origins of COVID-19 from a laboratory to neutral, a newly released document confirms.

Originally, CIA analysts concluded that COVID-19 likely came from a high-level laboratory in Wuhan, China located near where the first cases were detected in late 2019, senior CIA officer James Erdman III told lawmakers in May. Over the span of five days in 2021, however, Edman says the agency changed its stance to ‘neutral.’ 

Then in September of 2024 during a private briefing between intelligence officials and members of Congress, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) inquired as to how the agency came to the conclusion that lab-origin vs. natural origin were about equal, according to yesterday’s document release by outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard. 

In response, an unnamed CIA employee told Wenstrup that “he made the call to stop the shift to lab because [redacted] had come in the day before they were ready to publish which made them back off the call,” according to a summary of the briefing compiled by an intelligence official. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, officials said in a declassified assessment based on information through August 2021 that only one agency – which was not the CIA, based on details since made public – favored a lab origin for COVID-19.

An updated assessment released in mid-2023 states that the CIA was unable to determine the origin of COVID-19 because both the lab and natural origin theories “rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”

The CIA said in 2025 that a lab origin for COVID-19 was “more likely.” The Trump administration maintains that COVID-19 came from the lab in China.

More on Changes

A whistleblower in 2023 told members of Congress that the CIA team tasked with analyzing the origins of COVID-19 favored a lab origin, but that after the team was paid, it changed its position.

The CIA at the time denied paying analysts to reach specific conclusions.

Erdman, the senior CIA official, told a Senate panel in May that he was on a team investigating how intelligence agencies handled the COVID-19 pandemic and that the CIA declined to provide documents the team had requested that may have shed light on the change.

Erdman said that the team found the shift happened after Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the time the head of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – which provided funding for the lab in Wuhan – briefed intelligence officials and suggested to officials that they talk to specific scientists, including researchers who wrote a paper with which Fauci and the institute’s head secretly assisted.

The paper, called “Proximal Origin,” purported to rule out a laboratory origin.

Wenstrup also asked intelligence officials in the 2024 briefing about a white paper that National Center for Medical Intelligence analysts compiled as a rebuttal to the “Proximal Origin.” The authors of the white paper felt their conclusions were ignored by intelligence officials, they informed Wenstrup.

A representative for the center was not prepared for the questioning, “which annoyed Wenstrup,” according to the briefing summary.

Fauci Briefed Intelligence Officials

Fauci briefed intelligence officials on June 4, 2021, and promoted the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin, according to another briefing summary released by Gabbard.

Fauci “recommended that [intelligence officials] take a look at Tulane’s paper on two lineages from two separate markets,” the summary states. “To Dr. Fauci, this paper’s findings were a clear indication of natural origins of COVID-19.”

Fauci also “reminded the group that even for SARS, it took 12 years to make the link to a bat even though it only took 4 months to identify the natural reservoir” and that “we still haven’t identified source/origin of Ebola,” which is believed to have a natural origin, according to the summary.

Fauci, who has not responded to requests for comment, told lawmakers during a hearing in 2024 that he did not talk about viral research related to COVID-19 with intelligence officials.

“After the investigations began about COVID, I was briefed by intelligence agencies about possibilities of there being activities going on in different laboratories,” he said.

In another readout of the 2021 briefing, Fauci was said to have suggested intelligence officials connect with three scientists whose names were redacted.

“All three … have advocated for features of the virus that they judge to be consistent with a natural origin,” the readout states.

An email disclosed that one of the scientists was Kristian Andersen, a Scripps Research researcher who coauthored the “Proximal Origin.”

Andersen said in private messages with coauthors that COVID-19 may have been engineered before the paper was published. He has said that further analysis of the virus altered his and others’ views.

“Dr. Fauci was the behind-the-scenes adviser who, alongside his hand-picked so-called experts, pushed the intelligence community to endorse a natural animal origin to hide his dangerous gain-of-function research that he funded using taxpayer dollars,” Gabbard said in a video statement posted to X on June 18.

“All of this in a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth and shift the blame and attention away from Fauci’s own actions.”

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