A current CIA employee accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of “injecting” himself into the intelligence community’s investigation on the origins of COVID-19 — and said he played an “intentional” role in the agency’s scrapping of a plan in 2021 to announce the virus was leaked from a Chinese lab.

The whistleblower, James Erdman III, made the claim while testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning.

“Public health policy would have been very different had the American public been made aware that a virus from a lab in China was going to serve as the foundation for an emergency use authorization MRNA products being mandated by the former administration,” Erdman testified in his opening remarks. “Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional. Dr. Fauci influenced the analytical process and findings by leveraging his position to insure the IC consulted with the conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public health officials, and scientists.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) later asked him several questions about Fauci’s alleged meddling in the CIA probe into COVID.

“Your conclusion is changing from the scientific consensus of it being from a lab to a neutral position by the CIA was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci?” Paul asked.

“It was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci injecting himself into the IC,” Erdman said.

He continued, saying the CIA was “considering calling this a lab leak” on August 12, 2021, following a 90-day study.

“That changed on August 17, 2021,” Erdman said. “And unfortunately because the CIA would not provide us documentation that we asked for, we have no idea why that changed.”

A moment earlier in the hearing, Erdman said there were “two instances” in 2020 and 2021 where Fauci had “contact with the inner agency.” Erdman said Fauci gave the agency a “curated list” of subject matter experts, and was “pushing” people in his “orbit” for the agency to lean on; Erdman said the CIA was happy to take Fauci’s suggestions.

This was part of his attempt to shape the “narrative that was being generated by his contact not just with experts here in the United States, but experts in Australia and the U.K. as well,” he added.

Prior to the hearing, Paul told Fox News that Erdman’s testimony would prove the intelligence community “cover-up is a real thing,” and that it was known for years that the virus stemmed from a lab.

Fauci was the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to late 2022; he was the public face of the government’s COVID response during the final year of President Donald Trump’s first term — someone Fauci often publicly clashed with — and during the first year of ex-President Joe Biden’s time in the White House.

He asked at another point in the hearing whether anyone at the CIA brought up that “Anthony Fauci approved the research that went to Wuhan and might not be in his interest for the confusion to be it came from a lab he funded. That there might be a conflict.”

“Nobody said this is happening and unfortunately I think they probably should have. It was all out there,” Erdman said.

Watch both clips above via Fox News.

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