Joni Ernst Asks COVID Whistleblower To His Face: 'Why Would The US Government Cover Up For The CCP?'

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Senator Ernst.

[00:00:03]>> Thank Thank you, Mr. Chair. Really appreciate you being here today. Um, I know that this has been a a topic for many of us for many years, and we continue to get push back from the federal government as we're trying to uncover uh the truth to this matter. Um, for years, folks who discussed a possible COVID lab origin were dismissed as conspiracy theorists. They were censored. Um, some were even fired from their jobs.

[00:00:35]If there was or is a conspiracy, then US government officials and US funded scientists keeping secret should be publicly questioned under oath about what they knew and when they knew it.

[00:00:50]But US funded scientists somehow are still protected from being questioned publicly even though they received millions of taxpayer dollars from NIH, DHS, DOE, and DoD. And look, folks, um I've long warned about a potential government cover up of the truth, which our brave witness, again, thank you Mr. Erdman, uh has confirmed to us today.

[00:01:18]I've called for answers from Dr. Ralph Bareric, an expert viologist who showed the intelligence community in January 2020 before the American people knew about the pandemic that quote, "We may be on the verge of a global pandemic."

[00:01:35]End quote. Yet nothing was done to share this information with the American people. I exposed that the Wuhan lab received $1.4 $4 million in federal funds, fought to cut off every single scent flowing to that lab, and I won on this for the taxpayers. And I haven't backed down from fighting for more information on the true COVID origins.

[00:01:58]And yet, Congress is still here six years later, begging agencies to share answers and for committees to make relevant documents public. We are tired of Washington coverups and if they aren't our screw-ups here in the US, why would the US government cover up for the CCP and other countries? So, Mr. Erdman, Americans would have been angry to learn in early 2020 that their government may have played a role in CO 19's creation.

[00:02:30]Would you say such thinking influenced the intelligence community to suppress a lab leak origin? theory.

[00:02:39]>> I would say that there there's evidence in the emails uh that >> it was part of the calculus. I wouldn't say so it's it's it's very difficult.

[00:02:49]It's more sub subtle. Okay. Um, there's sort of a zeitgeist that runs underneath the analysis and I'll I'll I'll provide a conversation I had with one of our whistleblowers and I asked and he this individual was is an incredibly talented scientist and I said I asked that individual why don't why don't you actually go forward go public? There's there's a lot of reasons not to do that. There's a whole bunch. His comment was um nobody wants uh the lab nobody wanted the lably conclusion and um I'm concerned that there's too many people willing to make excuses for China in this organization for the wrong reasons. Um that that that was pervasive. And so the individuals we talked to um they never said you know one for one you know it's because they disliked the sitting president or they were they were uh trying to cover up like managers were trying to cover up for China but it was a pervasive uh undercurrent is how they described it and I think I think to answer your question um there's certainly uh Reluctance to uh reluctance to provide information that would be geop politically destabilizing or provide ammun ammunition for actions that maybe they thought would be unwise.

[00:04:32]>> Did I answer your question, Senator?

[00:04:34]>> Yes, you did. And it's it's troubling to hear that there's an undercurrent of making excuses for China as well. Um I deeply troubling. Uh we spend millions of dollars to have an early warning intelligence system and yet today I'm hearing the system may have been alerted um but no one was acting on the information. Uh do you think that's an accurate statement?

[00:04:59]>> I can't speak to the health agencies. I can say that the IC was certainly aware um early on that that looked like there might be an issue and so the intelligence that had come in I don't think they sat on it. I I don't think they sat on the intelligence. Now that speaks to maybe a broader issue with the interaction between IC elements and nonIC elements. Maybe there's there's some improvements that could be made there. But I I didn't see the IC sitting on information uh extraordinarily long.

[00:05:30]>> Okay. It could have been um agencies then extraneous to the IC, >> right? And and you know the bureaucracy is real. I mean it there's it's just every day sometimes feels like a fight just to get s simple things done and that's just part of working in a large organization. So I'm not making excuses.

[00:05:47]I'm just saying from the intelligence perspective um I think they identified fairly quickly that this might be an issue. Mhm. And with this as an issue, uh, typically we go back, we do afteraction reviews. Do you think this is something that the US government has learned from? Uh, I see you, Grimace. Maybe share a little bit about that because if this is a systemwide AC across a federal government, you know, how do we stop this from happening again? What lessons have we learned from this? if any um you're still coming forward as a a whistleblower. Uh so what have we taken away from this and and how do we prevent this from happening in the future whether it's you know the spread of a pandemic or you know what happened within the agency.

[00:06:36]>> So I really don't want to go beyond IC too much because I'm not part of like the health establishment. I'm not I'm not in that organization. But part of the reason the dig was pulled together as a task force. It was a temporary tool to to perform something like an afteraction review and get at the bottom of what happened. And if you're asking me, did we learn anything? Well, the problem is um we did not receive support from the CIA in terms of and I I documented in my transcribed interview and I don't want to go into the specifics of that, but there were very specific lists of information we needed so that we could put into context what happened. Um and so no, I don't think we've learned our lesson when it comes to uh transparency and reform. Um we didn't get the documents we needed.

[00:07:29]Senator, your committee issued uh what was it? uh 14 subpoenas in January of 2025 requesting documents and director Gabbard did her absolute best to try and force the IC to start producing these documents and they bunch of them got sent over to ODNI and but we still didn't get all of them like and and so what I'll say is like we we did not get the documents we needed from the CIA um state INR um and so the lessons in terms of transparency and reform I don't think those occurred and they can only occur and they can only occur if we actually do a a a full review of what happened during CO and again there's a there's a fair question how long do you want to be backwards leaning looking at CO that's a fair question you only have limited resources limited time limited personnel and we have limited experts that work within the CIA and they've got forward- facing threats >> the reason CO is so important is because What we did find is that there is a much larger meta problem sitting on top of co um the fact that we have these these scientists and again I'm not vilifying any of these these scientists we contracted in to come to the IC we desperately need their their expertise and so when we invite them in we're inviting them in because we want their help and so we need them >> but those same scientists It's this ecosystem that that has a lot of money involved. Uh you've got they're involved with the National Academy of Science, for example, some of them. And you know, National Academy of Science also helps um with our WMD policy for the US government.

[00:09:18]Unfortunately, the National Academy of Science also has a great number of Chinese researchers that co-publish. And so if we're not careful, we're going to have Chinese researchers helping us draft US WMD policy. That's not a good thing. Um you've got the counter threat reduction program that involves some of these IC scientists. And once you start cross-pollinating like that, >> being able to tease out and really provide proper oversight becomes so so difficult. And you're talking about also multiple funding streams from multiple different places.

[00:09:53]It's a very complex problem. COVID, we need the AAR so that we and it already pointed to the bigger problem. So maybe that's enough. Great.

[00:10:03]>> We need that.

[00:10:03]>> Thank you, Mr. Erdman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[00:10:06]>> Senator Ernst, one thing I would interject as far as lessons from my perspective is the scientists overseeing gain of function research can't be the scientists receiving the money.

[00:10:16]>> Right.

[00:10:16]>> So, uh, we voted last year on the risky research review act. to be a presidential commission but the scientists that oversee gain of function would not be receiving NIH grants. Part of it is that Fouchi had a fum this enormal fum and he was controlling the funds but then there was a danger of that he dosle it out to people who agree with him and I think that was happening.

[00:10:37]>> Point well taken.