Tulsi Gabbard used her final day as Director of National Intelligence to publish hundreds of pages of previously undisclosed documents that she says prove Dr. Anthony Fauci lied to Congress, steered intelligence agencies away from the lab leak theory, and directed U.S. taxpayer money toward gain-of-function coronavirus research at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The outgoing DNI made the documents available through the ODNI website and issued a series of pointed accusations against the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Gabbard alleged that the correspondence she released "directly contradicts" Fauci's sworn testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2024, when he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research.

If the documents hold up to scrutiny, they represent the most direct official challenge yet to Fauci's repeated public denials, and raise fresh questions about whether the intelligence community's early dismissal of the lab leak hypothesis was shaped not by evidence but by one man's self-interest.

What Gabbard says the documents show

Gabbard framed the release as a matter of public accountability. In a statement reported by Breitbart, she laid out the scope of her allegations:

"Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I'm releasing never before seen communications and documents that expose exactly how Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the intelligence community to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus's lab leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives."

The allegations break down into several categories. Gabbard claims Fauci used his advisory role within the intelligence community to shield himself from scrutiny and to press agencies toward a natural-origin explanation for COVID-19. She alleges he directed millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. And she says he promoted what she called a "fraudulent" paper, though she did not name the specific publication in her public remarks.

Gabbard also cited statements from "multiple whistleblowers" inside the intelligence community. Those analysts, she said, reported facing threats of retaliation and career setbacks for daring to challenge the official line on COVID's origins.

"The intelligence analysts who dared to challenge Dr. Fauci's COVID origin conclusions faced threats of retaliation, marginalization, and many suffered career setbacks."

The names of those whistleblowers have not been made public.

Specific details from supporting records

The Washington Examiner reported that the released documents show Fauci provided a list of virologists to intelligence agencies in June 2021, a list that included researchers with financial ties to NIAID and connections to the Wuhan lab, among them Ralph Baric and Peter Daszak. A whistleblower came forward in August 2021 alleging Fauci had lied under oath before the Senate HELP Committee when questioned by Sen. Rand Paul about gain-of-function research.

The pattern Gabbard describes is one of a senior official who sat at the intersection of public health and intelligence and used that position to control the narrative. Rather than recusing himself from assessments that touched on research he funded, Fauci allegedly inserted himself deeper into the process, selecting the very experts who would evaluate the question of whether the virus emerged from a lab his agency helped finance.

Newsmax reported that the declassified documents indicate Fauci met with CIA personnel on June 4, 2021, nearly a month after he denied under oath that NIH funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. The documents reportedly show Fauci was "particularly interested" in the Wuhan Institute of Virology's work on pangolin samples while simultaneously giving the impression he was "presumably not tracking" that research. NIH grants to EcoHealth Alliance allegedly funded modification of at least three bat coronaviruses that became more infectious when human-type receptors were added.

That timeline matters. If Fauci told Congress under oath that he had no knowledge of these discussions, and the correspondence places him in those very meetings weeks later, the gap between his words and his actions is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of record, or at least Gabbard says it is.

The intelligence community's shifting assessments

Just The News noted that both the FBI and the Department of Energy have assessed, with low-to-moderate confidence, that an accidental lab leak is the most likely source of COVID-19. The CIA separately concluded with low confidence that a research-related origin is more likely than a natural one. These assessments did not emerge overnight. They developed over years, often against institutional resistance.

Gabbard's tenure as DNI was marked by a willingness to challenge intelligence community orthodoxies inherited from the Biden era. Earlier in her time in office, she withdrew Biden-era intelligence findings that dismissed the Havana Syndrome threat, signaling that the prior administration's conclusions would not be treated as settled.

The COVID documents follow that same pattern: an outgoing official using her remaining authority to put material into the public domain that, she argues, previous leadership worked to suppress.

A broader pattern of declassification

The Fauci documents were not Gabbard's only declassification effort. The New York Post reported that she also declassified information revealing U.S. taxpayer funding of more than 120 biological labs in over 30 foreign countries. Roughly one-third of those labs were located in Ukraine, storing dangerous pathogens including Anthrax, Ebola, Marburg, and the Plague. That release followed a Trump executive order banning federal funding for gain-of-function research in countries lacking proper oversight.

Gabbard's statement on those biolabs was blunt: "Politicians, so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration's national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth."

The Trump administration has made declassification a central tool for exposing what it views as institutional dishonesty across the national security apparatus. That effort has extended well beyond COVID, touching on declassified intelligence memos that exposed bias behind the 2019 Trump impeachment whistleblower and other episodes where classified information was allegedly used to shield political actors from accountability.

No response from Fauci

Notably absent from the public record so far is any response from Dr. Fauci himself. None of the available reporting includes a statement, denial, or rebuttal from the former NIAID director. A former EcoHealth Alliance leader dismissed the revelations as a "nothing burger," Fox News reported, but Fauci's own silence on the specific documents leaves the allegations unanswered.

That silence is worth noting. Fauci has not been shy about defending himself in the past. He sparred publicly with Sen. Rand Paul over gain-of-function funding. He testified at length before congressional committees. He gave hundreds of media interviews. If the released correspondence does contradict his sworn testimony, as Gabbard alleges, the public deserves to hear his explanation, not just his allies' dismissals.

Paul referred Fauci to the Department of Justice for prosecution for lying to Congress back in July 2023. Whether DOJ acted on that referral remains unclear from available records. The new documents could renew pressure for a formal investigation.

Gabbard's departure and what comes next

Gabbard is leaving her post to care for her husband, who is battling what she described as an "extremely rare" form of cancer. Her successor has not been publicly identified in the available reporting. The question now is whether the documents she released will be treated as a serious evidentiary record or filed away as a departing official's parting shot.

The Trump administration has shown a consistent willingness to use the declassification process to challenge narratives established during the Obama and Biden years. That effort has included clearing out Obama- and Biden-era officials from intelligence leadership and pressing for transparency on matters the prior administrations preferred to keep quiet.

Gabbard herself framed the release in sweeping terms:

"Politicized, self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected president by restricting his access to the vital facts he needed to keep the country safe."

Those are allegations, not adjudicated findings. But the documents are now public. Anyone, journalists, congressional investigators, prosecutors, can read them. If Gabbard is right, the correspondence will speak for itself. If she is overstating the case, the same documents will show that too.

The intelligence community has spent years insisting its assessments on COVID origins were driven by evidence, not politics. Gabbard's release puts that claim to the test. The documents are at the ODNI website. The public can judge.

Gabbard described the tactics used to suppress the truth as "straight from the deep state playbook." Whether you accept that label or not, the pattern she describes, an unelected official leveraging classified channels to control a public narrative, retaliating against dissenters, and then denying it all under oath, is exactly the kind of conduct that erodes public trust in institutions that depend on it. The American people lost loved ones, livelihoods, and years of normalcy during the pandemic. They have earned the right to know whether the people who managed the response were honest with them.

If the documents say what Gabbard claims they say, the question is no longer whether Fauci misled the public. It is why nobody held him accountable sooner.