Federal investigators are intensifying efforts to uncover the truth behind several key issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, launching coordinated probes in Cleveland, New York and Baltimore.
The inquiries center on the virus’s origins, the deletion of critical federal records and concerns over the approval and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
The FBI’s investigation received a boost from a landmark legal ruling earlier this year, which found China deliberately concealed vital information about the virus.
The ruling, combined with recent congressional discoveries, has fueled a broad federal inquiry into possible misconduct by both foreign and domestic actors.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino publicly disclosed the investigation last week via social media.
“As we read and process reports of a new COVID strain emerging, I want you to know that we are actively investigating, in multiple field offices, the cover-up of the origin of the COVID virus, along with associated matters requiring our attention,” he wrote on X. “You deserve answers.”
In Cleveland, agents are focused on uncovering whether U.S. scientists or officials knowingly withheld or distorted information about COVID-19’s emergence, particularly related to the virus’s ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to Just the News.
Evidence includes congressional findings that a Chinese scientist attempted to submit proof of human-to-human transmission in December 2019, only to have the data removed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
An email from an NIH scientist dated December 28, 2019, stated, “As per our previous correspondence, we have deleted the following sequence submission(s) from our processing queue.”
In Baltimore, FBI investigators are examining allegations that federal scientists used private email accounts to hide discussions about COVID-19 and vaccine developments from public scrutiny, potentially violating federal record-keeping laws.
Meanwhile, a separate FBI team in New York is probing whether the COVID-19 vaccine approval process was subject to political interference and whether early reports of adverse side effects—such as heart inflammation in young adults—were deliberately concealed.
This branch of the investigation has been aided by whistleblower information from inside the vaccine industry and the investigative work of Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The legal foundation for much of the inquiry stems from a $24 billion judgment against China won by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Just the News reports.
U.S. District Judge Steven N. Limbaugh Jr. noted in his ruling that “China’s pattern of actions strongly suggests that it had knowledge of the existence and human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus as early as September 2019.”
Judge Limbaugh cited testimony from a Chinese biostatistics professor who accessed a confidential national database revealing a suspected COVID-19 death as early as September 2019, well before China publicly acknowledged the outbreak.
The professor later attempted to retract the statement.
The U.S. State Department has also reported it “has reason to believe” that Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019.
A central focus of the FBI’s work is determining when American officials first became aware of the virus’s transmissibility and whether efforts were made to suppress or alter that information.
Officials involved in the probe describe it as one of the most complex and wide-ranging investigations currently underway.
