James E. Erdman III, a 20-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 13, 2026, accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of intentionally influencing the intelligence community’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

At the hearing chaired by Senator Rand Paul in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Erdman stated that internal CIA scientific analyses repeatedly identified a laboratory leak as the most probable origin of the pandemic but these conclusions were buried, softened, or withheld from Congress and the public. He alleged Fauci deliberately steered the intelligence community toward a natural-origin narrative.

Erdman testified that if Americans had been informed about a lab-origin virus being used in emergency mRNA products, public health policy would have differed significantly. The whistleblower also claimed that Fauci leveraged his position to ensure the intelligence community consulted experts who were conflicted on the issue.

The CIA’s spokeswoman Liz Lyons described the hearing as “political theater” while acknowledging internal agency assessments point to a lab leak origin. No Democrats attended the hearing, with Senator Paul’s office stating they did not show up and were “not caring to dismantle the deep state.”

Fauci has consistently denied wrongdoing, maintaining that NIH-funded research tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology did not constitute gain-of-function work and that he did not mislead Congress.