National Intelligence Director Sued For Records On COVID-19 Origins

A conservative ethics watchdog is going back to federal court to uncover national security documents in the origins of the COVID-19 global pandemic and the United States’ federal government’s research on viruses.

The nonprofit public interest law firm Judicial Watch announced in a statement that it “filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records and communications of its employees with other government officials regarding coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and related Covid-19 research.”

“Covid-19 affected the lives of every American and lives around the world,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “To prevent a recurrence, we need the facts.”

Judicial Watch report it “sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence failed to respond to a November 20, 2025, FOIA request for “records and communications of any ODNI employees, contractors, or individuals detailed to ODNI and any of the following individuals that contain these keywords: coronavirus, COVID 19 (in any form). Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS, Wuhan, bats.”

The individuals are:

• Ralph Baric – @unc.edu

• Toni Baric – @unc.edu

• Anthony Fauci – @niaid.nih.gov

• Francis Collins – @nih.gov

• Cliff Lane – @niaid.nih.gov

• David Morens – @nih.gov

• Gray Handley – @cdc.gov

• Ping Chen – @cdc.gov

• Dennis Carroll – @usaid.gov

• Peter Daszak – @ecohealthalliance.org

• Aleksei Chmura – @ecohealthalliance.org

• Bob Garry – @tulane.edu

• Linfa Wang – @duke-nus.edu.sg

• Jeremy Farrar – @who.int (current) / @wellcome.org (former)

• Vincent Munster – @nih.gov

• Ian Lipkin – @columbia.edu

The date range for Judicial Watch’s request is January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2024.

“The initial Covid-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Covid-19 entered the conversation in the U.S. in January 2020,” Judicial Watch notes.

Judicial Watch further reports:

On October 30, 2025, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, requesting records related to the Committee’s investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and risky life sciences research.

Paul’s letter pointed out that members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) were in contact with Dr. Ralph Baric, a coronavirus expert and collaborator with Dr. Zhengli Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), well before the outbreak of the global pandemic. Paul stated that Baric’s relationship with the Intelligence Community dated back to at least 2015:

[I]n a September 2015 email, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contacted Dr. Ralph Baric, a scientist who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), to discuss a “possible project” relating to “[c]oronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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