IC Oversight & Policy — 2026-09-02

Senate Committee Releases New Documents Showing Fauci Ordered Email Deletion of Gain-of-Function Research Records and Steered IC COVID Origins Assessment

BLUFSenate documents linking systematic record deletion to steering of the IC origins assessment expose Fauci to perjury and obstruction charges that congressional and state investigators are now positioned to pursue.

Documents released by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul show Anthony Fauci closed at least five government emails between 2009 and 2020 with instructions to delete the message, including a March 2012 email to deputy Cliff Lane reading "please delete this e-mail and then delete from the deleted file" during internal debate over publishing Ron Fouchier's gain-of-function bird flu research 123. The released memos also show Fauci in 2021 urged the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to contact scientists Robert Garry, Kristian Andersen and Eddie Holmes, whom the documents describe as advocates of a natural-origin theory for COVID-19, while the FBI was separately developing evidence pointing to a possible lab origin 1. A CIA memo further shows NIAID held an inter-agency contract with the CIA covering bioterrorism-related genomic research, including a September 2015 CIA request to NIAID for data on viral mutation rates and the human-to-human passage needed to fix such mutations 1. Fauci did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation 23.

Analysis
Five email-deletion instructions spanning 2009 to 2020 establish disposal as recurring practice inside Fauci's office, contradicting his 2024 sworn testimony denying any deletions. His outreach directing CIA and ODNI analysts toward natural-origin proponents, timed as the FBI developed contrary lab-origin evidence, indicates NIAID leadership shaped which scientific voices reached the intelligence community during the origins debate; the same pattern could instead reflect ordinary deliberative-process housekeeping and legitimate scientific consultation rather than deliberate record destruction or steering. Reporting traces almost entirely to a single Daily Caller News Foundation exclusive on the Rand Paul committee's release, rerun and summarized secondhand elsewhere with no independent review of the underlying memos, capping confidence at low. The committee's contempt referral and ongoing state-level review point toward accountability proceedings that will extend well beyond the current hearing cycle.

4 sources

Fauci memos expose instructions to delete emails, steer spy agencies during COVID-19 pandemic - Just The News
Delete From the Deleted File: Fauci Tried to Destroy Gain-of-Function Research Email, New Docs Reveal - Daily Signal
EXCLUSIVE: 'Delete From The Deleted File': Fauci Tried To Destroy Gain-Of-Function Research Email, New Docs Reveal - Daily Caller News Foundation
Final Hearing Document Release Package - Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (Chairman Rand Paul)