Declassified Documents Show CIA Shifted COVID-19 Origin Assessment from Lab to Neutral in Five Days in 2021

A document released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard adds a concrete new data point: a senior CIA officer confirming, under congressional questioning, that the agency reversed its COVID-19 origin assessment within a five-day window in 2021.

What the Document Actually Says

Senior CIA officer James Erdman III told lawmakers in May that CIA analysts had originally concluded COVID-19 likely originated from a high-level laboratory in Wuhan, China, near where the earliest cases were detected in late 2019, according to Epoch Times reporting cited by ZeroHedge.

Over five days in 2021, the agency pulled back from that conclusion to a "neutral" stance.

The newly declassified document, a summary of a September 2024 private briefing between intelligence officials and members of Congress, captures the moment Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) asked directly how the CIA concluded lab-origin and natural-origin were roughly equal possibilities. An unnamed CIA employee told Wenstrup that "he made the call to stop the shift to lab because [redacted] had come in the day before they were ready to publish which made them back off the call."

The bracketed redaction is the problem. Whatever arrived that day—new intelligence, political guidance, external pressure—remains classified.

The Fauci Briefing

Erdman told a Senate panel in May that he was on a team investigating how intelligence agencies handled the COVID-19 pandemic and that the CIA declined to provide documents the team had requested that may have shed light on the change. Erdman said the team found the shift happened after Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the time the head of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—which provided funding for the lab in Wuhan—briefed intelligence officials and suggested they talk to specific scientists, including researchers who wrote a paper Fauci and the institute's head secretly assisted. That paper, called "Proximal Origin," purported to rule out a laboratory origin.

A separate briefing summary released by Gabbard shows Fauci briefed intelligence officials on June 4, 2021, and promoted the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin. Fauci "recommended that [intelligence officials] take a look at Tulane's paper on two lineages from two separate markets," the summary states. "To Dr. Fauci, this paper's findings were a clear indication of natural origins of COVID-19."

Fauci also "reminded the group that even for SARS, it took 12 years to make the link to a bat even though it only took 4 months to identify the natural reservoir" and that "we still haven't identified source/origin of Ebola," according to the summary.

Fauci, who has not responded to requests for comment, told lawmakers during a hearing in 2024 that he did not talk about viral research related to COVID-19 with intelligence officials. In another readout of the 2021 briefing, Fauci was said to have suggested intelligence officials connect with three scientists whose names were redacted. An email disclosed that one of the scientists was Kristian Andersen, a Scripps Research researcher who coauthored the "Proximal Origin." Andersen said in private messages with coauthors that COVID-19 may have been engineered before the paper was published; he has said that further analysis of the virus altered his and others' views.

Wenstrup also asked intelligence officials in the 2024 briefing about a white paper that National Center for Medical Intelligence analysts compiled as a rebuttal to the "Proximal Origin." The authors of the white paper felt their conclusions were ignored by intelligence officials. A representative for the center was not prepared for the questioning, "which annoyed Wenstrup," according to the briefing summary.

The Paper Trail Since 2021

The agency's own public record shows an institution that has changed its position three times in four years.

A declassified assessment based on information through August 2021 stated that only one intelligence agency—not identified as the CIA based on details made public since—favored a lab origin. An updated assessment released in mid-2023 stated that the CIA could not determine the origin because both theories "rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting." Then in 2025, the CIA stated that a lab origin was "more likely." The Trump administration has maintained the lab-origin position throughout.

That's three distinct positions in four years, with a five-day reversal sitting at the center of the timeline.

The Whistleblower Allegation

This is not the only pressure the CIA has faced on this question. A whistleblower in 2023 told members of Congress that analysts on the COVID-19 origins team favored a lab origin but changed their position after being paid. The CIA denied at the time that analysts were paid to reach specific conclusions.

Erdman's testimony does not resolve that allegation one way or another. What it does confirm is that a specific individual made the call to stop the shift toward lab origin, and that something redacted arrived the day before publication that prompted the reversal. Whether that was legitimate new intelligence or something else is not established by these documents.

The Strongest Counterargument

Intelligence assessments are supposed to change when new information arrives. The CIA's defenders would argue this is the system working correctly: analysts saw something the day before publication that genuinely warranted caution, and a senior official made a judgment call to hold. Intelligence is not a courtroom. Analysts regularly revise conclusions as the picture shifts. The 2023 framing that both theories face "significant assumptions" could reflect honest epistemic humility rather than political management.

That argument is weakened by the redaction. If the factor that caused the reversal was legitimate new intelligence, releasing that context—even in general terms—would be the obvious way to defend the process. Instead, it remains classified two years after the 2023 update and five years after the reversal itself.

What Remains Unresolved

The source for this article is ZeroHedge, which leans right and relied heavily on Epoch Times sourcing. Neither outlet has a track record that warrants treating their framing as neutral. The core facts here are documentary and attributable: Erdman's congressional testimony, the September 2024 briefing summary, the document released by Gabbard. The framing around those facts deserves scrutiny; the facts themselves do not appear to be in dispute.

No investigation has been announced into how the 2021 reversal occurred or who made the call. No charges have been filed. The redacted factor that triggered the five-day reversal has not been publicly identified.