Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just made her last day on the job count for something, releasing never-before-seen documents that she says prove Dr. Anthony Fauci funneled millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in China — and then lied to Congress about it under oath in 2024. Merry Christmas to everyone who's been waiting four years for receipts.
But sure, we were the conspiracy theorists.
Gabbard announced the document dump with the kind of clarity Washington almost never provides. "I'm releasing how Dr. Fauci worked with politicized elements within the Intelligence Community to suppress the truth about his actions and hide the virus' lab-leak origins, and lied to Congress while under oath in 2024," Gabbard stated. "It's time you know the truth."
See, that's the thing about the truth. It doesn't care about your timeline. You can bury it under classification stamps, redactions, and a compliant media for years, but eventually somebody walks into the office, opens the filing cabinet, and says "Hey, what's all this?"
And what's all this? Communications and documents that allegedly show Fauci — the man who styled himself as "The Science" — was working hand-in-glove with politicized elements inside the U.S. Intelligence Community to suppress the lab-leak theory. Not because the evidence pointed away from the Wuhan lab. Because the evidence pointed directly at it, and at his funding of it.
Let's remember where the agencies actually landed on this. The FBI assessed that a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19. The Energy Department reached the same conclusion. Even the CIA — not exactly a MAGA outfit — assessed that a research-related origin was more likely than a natural one. Three separate intelligence bodies, all pointing at the lab. And Fauci spent years telling us to follow the science while allegedly hiding the science that followed the money straight back to him.
Millions in taxpayer dollars. Your money. My money. Sent to a lab in Wuhan to make viruses more dangerous, and then when one of those viruses apparently got loose and shut down the entire planet, the guy who signed the checks got to go on CNN every night and lecture us about mask compliance.
You can't write satire this good.
The gain-of-function angle has been the thread that Fauci's defenders have spent years trying to snip. He told Senator Rand Paul — under oath, on camera, with the whole world watching — that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Paul called him a liar to his face. The media called Paul a grandstander. Now Gabbard is dropping the documents that suggest Paul was right all along.
And the timing here is perfect. Gabbard didn't sit on this for a memoir deal or a Netflix documentary. She released it on her last day as DNI — no bureaucratic delays, no interagency review committees, no six-month declassification process. Just the documents, on the table, for the American people. That's how you leave a job.
Contrast that with how Fauci left his job. He retired from NIAID with full honors, a government pension that would make your eyes water, and a farewell tour that treated him like a departing pope. Then he testified before Congress in 2024 and, according to these newly released documents, lied through his teeth.
We spent three years locked in our houses, watched small businesses die, pulled kids out of school, masked toddlers on airplanes, and buried loved ones who couldn't have visitors in the hospital. And the whole time, the man who helped fund the research that may have caused all of it was standing at a podium telling us he was the expert.
Now the receipts are out. The question isn't whether Fauci misled the public anymore. The question is whether anyone in Washington has the spine to do something about it. Perjury before Congress isn't a policy disagreement. It's a felony.
Gabbard did her part. She opened the vault. Now it's the Department of Justice's turn to decide if lying to Congress under oath still means something in this country — or if that's just a rule for people who aren't friends with the right journalists.