Transcribed interview — baric_ti
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Good morning. This is a voluntary, closed-door transcribed interview of Dr. Ralph Baric, being conducted by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This interview was requested by Committee Chairman Rand Paul as part of the committee's oversight investigation on government funding of risky research and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 18, 2026, the witness agreed to appear before the committee on April 10, 2026. For the record, during the transcribed interview the committee will be bound solely by Senate and Committee rules. We will adhere to them. Do you understand?
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I agree, but I don't know what the Senate rules are.
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We've reviewed them.
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I figured you all know, right.
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You are here voluntarily. Nevertheless, under Title 18 Section 1001 you are required to answer questions from Congress truthfully, including questions posed by congressional staff during this interview. Do you understand?
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I do.
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Is there any reason that you would be unable to provide us today with truthful answers to our DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com questions?
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Not that I know of, assuming that I remember.
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We will proceed to make introductions of the office conducting this interview today. Then we will explain how we intend to proceed. My name is Harry Kazenoff. I am the Assistant Counsel. And to my far right is Christina Salazar, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the Majority Staff of the Committee. Additionally, we have Mr. William Henderson, Staff Director of the Majority Staff of the Committee. Additional majority staff are present, but we do not currently intend for them to speak during the duration of this interview, though we reserve the right to amend, as needed. Any new majority staff who ask a question will introduce themselves for the record. And with that, will the witness please state and spell their name for the record.
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My name is Ralph Steven Baric. The spelling is R-A-L-P-H S-T-E-V-E-N B-A-R-I-C.
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Do you have any attorneys representing you, either in a personal capacity or under a limited capacity present with you today?
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I do.
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For each counsel, please state and DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com spell your full name and identify the client you're representing.
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I'm Clark Kent Ervin with Squire Patton Boggs, and I'm Counsel to the University for purposes of this interview with Dr. Baric.
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David Lambeth, Counsel for UNC Chapel Hill and Dr. Baric as an employee.
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Jake Greenberg with DLA Piper. I represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dr. Baric.
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This interview will be conducted in two parts. The first portion of the interview will be conducted in an unclassified setting. Only unclassified information will be discussed during the first portion. We will not intentionally ask a question during the first portion of the interview that we believe could implicate classified information. However, if a question is asked that would require you to disclose classified information in your answer, or if you are genuinely unsure, please state that for the record and we will re-ask the question in the second portion of the interview. At noon, we will recess and the witness and properly cleared majority staff and witness counsel will relocate to the Office of Senate Security where the second portion of the interview will be conducted in a sensitive DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com compartmented information facility. Do you have any questions about how we plan to proceed?
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No.
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There is a court reporter taking down everything that is said and will make a written record of the interview. Please provide a verbal response. For the record to be clear it is important that only one person speak at a time. Do you understand?
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I do.
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Counsel will have an opportunity to review the transcript and provide an errata expeditiously following the interview. We want to make clear that we are only bound by Senate and Committee rules and not any common law privilege, rules of civil procedure, or any equivalent extrinsic doctrines. Do you understand?
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I do.
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This interview today is being conducted without prejudice to any future discussions the committee may require, and we reserve the right to request your participation in future interviews or depositions, should we need to. Do you understand?
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Yes.
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Finally, we would ask that you not speak about what we discuss in today's interview outside of the room, to help us maintain the integrity of our DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com investigation. And we also ask that you not remove or make any copies or photographs of any materials or exhibits. Do you understand?
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My wife is going to insist that she knows what happens in this meeting. I hope that's okay.
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Do you have any questions before we begin?
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No.
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Thank you.
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Well, thank you for being here, and we thank you for being here voluntarily. We appreciate it. I've been working with your counsel and thank you. We're going to conduct this in two parts. We have a lot of questions for you, but I intend for this to be conversational. We're happy you're here. We've obviously been looking at this for a long time. It is 2026. But we haven't had a chance to engage directly, but your team has provided us documents, and we appreciate that. So, you know, I wanted to kind of be up front with you, where I'm coming from, where the Chairman is coming from. I think a lot of people are like, "It's 2026. Why are we still talking about COVID, COVID origins?" The reason that we asked you here today is because we feel like we don't have all the answers, not specifically from you but generally from our government. The other day DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com I accidentally went on Twitter, and there was a debate on Twitter again over whether it was a lab leak or not, renewed debate. So this is something that, you know, it's not settled. I don't know if it will ever be settled. But from our perspective there are still a lot of outstanding questions about taxpayer-funded research. We shut down our economy. We withheld children from going to school. And those may have been necessary responses, may not have been. But in order for us to make changes or assess the situation we have to understand what happened. And that's why we're here, six years later. So I just wanted to lay that out. We're not accusing anyone of anything. We're genuinely just trying to get to the truth, or at least try to understand it to the best that we can.
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It's a pleasure to be here.
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Thank you. I wanted to start, obviously, you gave testimony in the House.
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I did.
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And I wanted to just start -- I know this may be a loaded question, but is there anything from that testimony that you would like to, off the bat, clarify or generally -- and we may talk about that today, but I just wanted to see if there was any portions of that testimony that you wanted to clarify or provide any DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com statements on.
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Nothing comes to mind, but if you have questions on that testimony I'll be glad to give you my current thinking.
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Okay. Great. Well, let's start early outbreak. So when was the first you heard of the outbreak?
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A notice went up on ProMed about a new respiratory infection in Wuhan on December 31st, and I immediately got phone calls from several collaborators who were letting me know about it. I didn't find out it was a coronavirus until about the 4th of January, when a colleague of mine at the University of Virginia asked me to participate in a phone call with some Chinese researchers to try to get them in contact with Gilead to set up trials with remdisivir.
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And you said that was University of Virginia?
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University of Virginia.
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And who was that?
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I knew you were going to ask that question. At some point the neuron will fire.
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So you said that was January 4th?
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Yeah, yeah. It's in the testimony, I think, in the House. Yeah.
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And had you already been working with DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Gilead?
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Oh, we started working with Gilead in 2016 on a work on identifying broad-spectrum, small molecule inhibitors against the coronavirus family.
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Okay. And I'm going to jump around, based on our conversation, so I'm going to go ahead and ask this now.
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Sure.
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Did you serve as an expert consultant for Gilead in terms of their patent dispute against AMMS?
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No.
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Oh, you didn't?
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Not that I'm aware of.
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Okay.
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Oh, wait, wait. Which patent dispute is this? Is this in Europe?
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Are there multiples? Yes.
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Yes, okay. Sorry.
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I didn't know there were multiple --
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I had forgotten. They had asked me to make a statement about that, and I had forgotten about that, but make a statement about that, so I guess two or three years ago. And I haven't heard much about what was going on so I kind of left it behind. But yes, I gave them a written statement. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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I was just wondering if that was the same, you know, the same type of research that you were engaged in on the 4th, or that you were discussing on the 4th. Is that the same?
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Yes, that's the same. That's the same phone call, yes. That's absolutely true.
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Okay. And so on the 4th you had that call, and then I know that you had a call, I think, with Erik Stemmy on the 7th?
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Around the 7th. There were a lot of phone calls in the first three weeks of January. But certainly I did talk to him. The exact date, I'd have to look at my notes. I thought it was more around the 11th or 12th, but it could easily be the 7th.
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Was that the first NIH employee that you had spoken to, or had you spoken with others?
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Somewhere around those dates I also talked to Barney Graham at the VRC, because we'd been working since about 2017 on mRNA-LNP-based vaccines using MERS coronavirus as, in essence, a paradigm model for how to develop an effective vaccine against coronavirus.
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Did you already have a vaccine developed with them, or was it still --
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We had an mRNA vaccine for MERS coronavirus that had been tested in mice, both young and DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com old mice, and it was extremely effective. I think that data was immediately incorporated into the discussions, that I was not part of, but discussions at the Federal level, in terms of prioritizing which vaccines might go forward. So the reason, I think, that we were particularly so excited about that data is that most of the vaccines that I have tested against coronaviruses, epidemic or pandemic, not pandemic, epidemic coronaviruses like the original SARS 2003 strain, or the MERS strain, worked effectively in young animals. But when you took them into aged animals, where the vaccines are less affected by about tenfold, the vaccines would fail. And the beauty about the VRC mRNA vaccine was that the neutralizing titers in the immune responses were as effective in the old animals as the young animals, so they were fully protected. And that was very impressive.
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And so the VRC Moderna vaccine.
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Yeah. Moderna certainly was engaged. Whether they actually manufactured the vaccine that was put in the animals or not, or whether NIH made that vaccine and put it in, I don't know.
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And your vaccine, what was it called?
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Oh, the Moderna vaccine?
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No, no, no. Yours, the one that you had DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com worked with.
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Oh, we compared it to a killed vaccine. We'd also tested alpha virus-based vaccines, Venezuelan equine encephalitis replicon particles. It was basically an RNA virus where the structural genes have been removed, so it's single hit. It can only infect one set of cells. It delivers the payload gene, in this case the coronavirus antigen. That induces an immune response that is either protective or not, depending on the model system. The other was killed vaccines. In 2003, the NIH had purchased two, or the Federal Government had purchased two $20 million killed vaccines to test against SARS coronavirus.
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What's a killed vaccine?
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They took the SARS coronavirus and then they inactivated it with a chemical inactivation, a UV light. So they killed the virus so that all that was left was the antigenic preparation, and that's put in the animal. So killed vaccines are pretty commonly used in humans.
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Okay. And the vaccine, the MERS vaccine, is that the CisVax [sic] vaccine that I saw in one of your grant proposals, was called CisVax?
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CisVax?
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I think. If you don't know. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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I've read a lot of proposals. You're going to have to show me the proposal and then I can tell you.
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If not, I was just trying to tie it back to something. Okay. So I have some notes, and I think your call was around the 7th.
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I believe you, but I just don't recall the exact date.
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Do you recall what you all discussed?
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Not in any detail. I can probably give you an estimate of what we talked about, was that there was a new coronavirus that was being identified, and it would be logical for the NIH to contact me and talk to me about what it was. Although the 7th would've been a little early. I guess it was around the 7th or 8th that I actually got the sequence of the virus. Before that I'd been verbally told by the Chinese that it was 78 percent identical to the original SARS coronavirus 2003 strain.
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And who told you that?
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Ben Cao was on the line. It was Fred Hayden. I knew I'd eventually remember Fred's name from University of Virginia. That's going to happen a lot, by the way. And the other person on the call was Peter Horby from England.
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Do you mean Georgia? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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No, not the Georgia guy, no. The reason they called me was that they had worked as sort of an international team to set up clinical trials for respiratory viruses, mostly focused on flu, and China -- flu or small molecule inhibitors. Sorry, I forgot the second part. And so they were very interested in initially talking about using remdisivir in their clinical trials, which they eventually did in January.
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Which you were also involved in.
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No. My role was to call up Gilead collaborators and say, "The Chinese want to talk to you," and that's what I did.
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Did any of your research lead to --
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We had a paper that was coming out in Nature Communications on January 10th, and so I called the journal and asked them if it was okay if I could share it with the Chinese and the other people on the call, so we did.
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And so I have a little bit of information that might refresh your recollection. You just tell me if this sounds familiar. So Peter Daszak was also on the call. Does that refresh your --
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Not with the Chinese.
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Not with the Chinese. With Eric Stemmy.
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Oh, he may have been. Yes, he may have DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com been.
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And it sounds like, the notes that I have -- and again, if you don't recall this, just let me know -- it appears that you may have mentioned that you had some confidentiality issue with remdesivir, within Nature Communications.
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Yeah.
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Okay. And that you were willing to share what you knew with leadership at NIH, but that you couldn't share it. You had to have some kind of assurance that it wouldn't be shared more broadly.
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I don't recall this, but he may have been wanting a copy of the paper that I just mentioned. I may have sent it to them. I don't see why I wouldn't. The big question would be whether Gilead would have a problem, not that I would have a problem with it.
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So what's the confidentiality agreement when you're --
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So when the journal tells you the paper is in press, they say you're not allowed to report it until it's published. So to send the paper around to other individuals in the final form could be breaking that confidentiality agreement.
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And so what information did you have from the paper? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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So the paper did a comparison of the effectiveness of remdisivir against two HIV drugs, lopinavir and another drug, which I'm blanking on. There had been several reports by Chinese researchers that the second drug was effective in treating SARS coronavirus. Personally, again, I'd have to reread the papers. I haven't read them in years. But my recollection is that the papers compared the treatment of this HIV therapy to historic controls. And so they didn't have as many males in the study, in the two comparisons. Males have more severe disease, so it looked like this HIV therapy was effective. It was ritonavir, the other drug. And so the Chinese were planning on using massive treatment regiments in their population, using this HIV therapy, and the paper clearly shows that that therapy doesn't work.
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They were going to use it on what?
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Humans.
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But for all coronaviruses? For flu?
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Their cases of SAR-2, of COVID-19, in January of 2020.
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So they were already publishing a paper.
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No.
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Okay. I just want to make sure I understand. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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Let me step back. So historically they published a paper showing that this drug combination might be effective against emerging coronavirus infections, using SARS as their model. We did a head-to-head comparison of remdesivir versus this drug, and had submitted it to Nature Communications for publication. And that was in 2019, and the paper was going to be published on January 10, 2020. On the 7th or so, or on the first call, they wanted me to share that paper with them so that they could evaluate what they were going to do for treating their COVID-19 patients.
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At NIH.
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No. China. We didn't have any cases on January 7th, 2020, in the U.S.
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I just want to make sure I understand. You received information from the Chinese about the SARS16 COVID-2 outbreak.
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I told you that. I think it was around the 4th, that told me it was a coronavirus related to SARS, that was 78 percent identical.
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Okay.
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That means basically it has 6,000 nucleotides. So if you think about a tree, SARS coronavirus is on one branch of that tree, and SARS-2 is on a totally different branch of that tree.
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Okay. And so your conversations with DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Peter Daszak during that time, when did you start working with Peter Daszak? You had a relationship with him.
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I got to meet him around 2004. I can't tell you exactly when. I mean, scientific meetings, you run into people all the time. But I would guess it would start around 2014 we ran into a meeting, I think at the NEIDL together, and had some discussions. And I visited his place afterwards. We had common interests, but we didn't effectively start working together until later in 2014, on some of the work on the 2015 paper, that was published in Nature Medicine.
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Okay. Why don't we skip to that.
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I mean, from my perspective, and just looking at it from a scientific perspective, he made major contributions into identifying emerging infectious disease hotspots around the world. He worked extensively with China on SARS coronavirus in 2003. He's sort of a microbial ecologist, very different field than I do. But we would have mutual interests to talk about emerging viruses.
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And did he have people on the ground over in Wuhan in early 2020?
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So I was not part of his RO1 grant that went from like 2014 to 2019. So on that grant, as you know, part of that money went to the Wuhan Institute of DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Virology. So I guess you could say he had a collaborative group in China, and I would imagine that he had people moving back and forth between the two, the U.S. and China.
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To your knowledge, he didn't an EcoHealth employee or anything like that?
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You'd have to ask him those questions. I wouldn't know.
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Okay. And then what about Ian Lipkin?
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Yeah, another good friend from Columbia University. But what's the question?
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So my understanding is that he also worked out of the Wuhan CDC at times.
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Ian Lipkin, you'd have to look at his CV, but I believe he received a medal from China for his efforts in the original 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak, helping them bring it under control. So he is also, not really a viral ecologist. He really does virus discovery, very interested in post-responses to viral infections. He's a global leader in really, I guess, the last 15 years, developing new technologies for rapid detection of unknown pathogens in the environment.
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Are you aware of him working out of the Wuhan CDC?
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He told me he'd worked extensively with people in China during the 20- -- I didn't ask him details DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com about whether it was with Wuhan Institute of Virology or not. Again, he would be the person you'd need to ask that of.
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And then going back real quick to the RO1 grant. You weren't an official collaborator, or PI, co-PI, until later on. But you did provide a letter of support --
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Yes.
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-- for the initial grant in 2014. Is that right?
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Well, I may have. It wouldn't surprise me if I did. If he asked me, I would've, yes.
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Okay. And then did you provide any mouse models or anything like that prior to your involvement formally later on?
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To Peter?
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To Peter or to, with --
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Okay. Around 2013 or 2014, Zhengli Shi identified two new sarbecoviruses called SHC014 and WIV1. She was able to culture WIV1 in cell culture, and they published a paper in Nature on that. And we met at a meeting and we had some discussions. Ultimately, she provided me with the sequences, and we used that, of the spike, going at the spike like a protein. And so we build chimeric viruses. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com They also, when the paper was finally being written, they had developed what are called pseudotype viruses. These are, in essence, single-hit replicon viruses that are pseudotyped with the spike like a protein, of different coronaviruses. And they showed that WIV1 could infect and use human H2 receptors. But they also showed that SHC014 could not. So when she provided us with those reagents and we recovered viruses, we showed that SHC014, in fact, could use that human receptors for entry. And because they also provided their SHC014 pseudotype data in the paper and provided the virus sequences for this, they were included on the manuscript, and I think their grant was cited. So that's how that worked.
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And is that the 2015 paper?
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That's the 2015 paper, yeah. Did you all read that? I'm just wondering, if you read my grants you must be almost numb.
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I'm not a scientist. But I am familiar with it. So let's turn to that paper. So that was a topic of, and I'm sure you've read the FOIAs about you since, a topic of great discussion. Early in 2020, February 2020, it seemed like all of a sudden that paper was sent around among several people. I think Fauci sent it out on February 1st to a number of people within the NIH.
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I wouldn't know when he did that, but I DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com believe you.
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Were you ever asked about that paper by anyone?
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Yes. On the 13th of February, I believe, 13th or 14th -- again, exact day is going to be difficult for me to recollect without notes in front of me -- but on the 13th or 14th I was up in D.C. for a progress report meeting on a grant and also giving a talk at some meeting. So we scheduled a meeting for about an hour with his leadership team, and I met him either at his office or at one of the NIH buildings for the extramural program.
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Okay. So that meeting was the 13th or 14th?
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13th or 14th, yes.
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It's not the 11th?
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It might be the 11th. I don't think it's the 11th.
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Yeah. That's another topic that we wanted to discuss, because I think there's been some confusion just in our documents of when the meeting actually occurred. I think it's been on some calendars for the 11th.
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I know those emails have been FOIA'd multiple times, and it says exactly when I was supposed to meet them and where. So I would guess that they're in the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com packet that we sent.
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I'd be surprised if you didn't have them. If you don't, we can certainly get them for you.
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So you were here, physically, in the country on the 11th.
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Yeah. As far as I know.
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I feel like you would probably remember that. In early 2020, I guess from January to February to that meeting, were you in the United States the entire time?
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Yes, to the best of my recollection.
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If you weren't, I feel like you would've remembered, right?
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I would think so. But you have to realize what January and February were like for me. I had constant calls going on. And so it was a blur. It really was a blur.
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One of the calendar invites that we have says that the purpose of the discussion, for you coming in, was to discuss basic research that is gain-of-function, that will further understanding of coronaviruses and corona vaccine development, and two, to address the slowness of the U.S. government P3CO process. Does that sound like the conversation that you had?
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The first part, absolutely. I don't DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com recall much in the discussion of the slowness of the P3CO process. But if it says it in the email then at some point they may have wanted to discuss that. I don't know. Was that something that I said?
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No, it wasn't. But in the agenda items that we've seen from other officials, that's the agenda that was on there. But from your House testimony it sounded like that wasn't necessarily what was discussed.
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I don't recall that part being in the House, so I think the House testimony is actually accurate.
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So can you let us know what you all talked about and who was present?
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Well, Fauci was present for about 5 to 10 minutes max. He got called away for a phone call in a SCIF, and so he left pretty early in the meeting. There was some basic discussion about the new virus. Ultimately, they got to, I think, what they really wanted to talk about was gain-of-function related experiments, or I think it should be potential gain-of-function related experiments, that were associated with this 2015 and 2016 paper. I was a little surprised that they didn't seem to have the paperwork that was involved in my presentation on why I thought this might be more of a loss-of-function than a gain-of-function phenotype. And so then I think a day or so later I sent them all those documents. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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So they just didn't have them?
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I don't know. They seemed surprised to me.
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Surprised about --
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They seemed uncertain, not surprised. "Uncertain" would be the better word, about the status of these documents, which surprised me.
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So that paper was in 2015. It was NIHfunded research.
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If I were to guess, institutional memory, retired, and they didn't know where the documents were, would be my guess.
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Is that frequent at NIH?
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It's frequent everywhere in the world. Institutional memory is key.
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I would expect, as a government entity that funds a lot of IT modernization efforts and systems for agencies, I'm a little shocked that they don't have a way to pull up taxpayer-funded applications.
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Well, it wouldn't be the application. It would be a specialized series of documents associated with P3CO review. Again, this would have been very early on, too, so the formalized structure for that review wasn't, I think, finalized until '16 or '17, I think, with the NSABB stuff. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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But there was a structure.
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There certainly was a structure. They reviewed it, responded, and then asked for responses from me, and then I gave those responses.
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And could you tell us a little bit about, at the time, what that process was like, in terms of the P3CO process?
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So in, was it, October 2014, the Obama administration put out the pause. The pause effectively was set up two ways. One way was that if a grant was submitted that had the potential for gain-of-function research it would be reviewed before they funded it. And the second class was if you were already doing P3, or research that might fall under the category, you had the option to either pause it voluntarily or continue it. And in the case of SHC014-WIV work, we paused it voluntarily. The third category was waivers. And so the NIH approved three groups, to my knowledge, to continue to develop a MERS coronavirus mouse model for countermeasured studies.
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And you were one of them?
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And we were one of them.
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Do you know who the others were?
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I think one group was out of the University of Utah. I can't remember the fellow's name.
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Were they individual exemptions, or was DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com it across the board?
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I don't know about their exemptions. Mine was an individualized exemption. I don't know what theirs were. I didn't receive their paperwork.
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And what was the process for seeking an exemption at that time?
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I don't remember that, as well. I can't remember the details of that, as well. All I can tell you is that the exemption was approved right before Christmas of 2014.
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Okay. And so back to the mid-February meeting, were they just like, did we review it and we were okay with it?
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No. They knew that they had approved it. Again, I would've expected them to have the documents in the meeting, right. That would have made sense. They didn't have the documents, and I don't know why.
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And they didn't seem to be aware of documents?
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No. They were aware that there were documents that existed. They didn't seem to have a copy of them, and that surprised me. So I immediately said, "I'll be glad to send you the copies," and the university did, so we did.
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Good thing you guys had a copy. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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Well, yeah, really.
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I mean, was the conversation, were they worried? What was the tone of it? I mean, we see -- and again, these have been FOIA'd -- there's a spur of sending out that paper, within hours, to multiple different people. Now, you know, a lot of the emails don't have commentary, but it's on February 1st. We know what else happened on February 1st.
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Well, I think you need to put it in context. So in China there was a massive social media barrage of speculation that the 2015 virus was the cause of the pandemic. NIH had to become aware of that at some point, and they would immediately then be worried whether everything was done properly. They had to be. And it's five years back, so again, these are things that are not going to be at the top of anyone's mind. But at the same time, they're going to want to know was everything done properly. So yeah, I think naturally that they would be concerned, naturally they'd want to know, is that virus the cause of the pandemic or not? I mean, if they didn't ask those kinds of question, they would be really irresponsible.
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That's kind of irresponsible that they didn't have the paperwork too.
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Well -- DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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That's just my commentary.
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I would guess that most large organizations will take a while to find the paperwork.
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So they asked you to provide the paperwork. I mean, did you alert them that this was an accusation that it could have been the 2015 virus? You know, where did that come from?
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Initially it came from the Chinese, social media speculation about what was the cause of the pandemic. The question certainly came up, and I can tell you the same thing that I told them, as far as this virus differs from the SARS coronavirus-2 strain by over 6,000 nucleotides, which means that it's incredibly different. So there's no way it could ever be associated with the emergence of this virus. It's just not possible. Same thing with the WIV1 virus. That's been validated by I don't know how many independent investigators around the globe. When they compare the sequence they say it is not the cause of the pandemic.
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Okay. So what else was discussed in the meeting?
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We discussed the P3CO documents. I sort of told them why we felt that the data didn't demonstrate a gain-of-function phenotype, and that was because there was no change or increased replication of the virus in human DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com cells. There was no increased pathogenesis in mice. Alternatively, there was a loss of disease severity in mice, and so that's a loss-of-function phenotype.
-
And who made those decisions from NIH?
-
Well, again, my job is to send the document to the NIH. It goes into a black box.
-
Who did you send it to?
-
Oh, that will also be on my email chain. I don't remember her name. But you should have that also in the email documents.
-
So you sent all of these documents to NIH after your meeting.
-
Yeah. I don't think the university did. I thought it was through me. Do you remember?
-
In February 2020, yes, I believe you sent them to NIH. That's my recollection.
-
That would be my recollection.
-
Do you recall who you sent it to, because I don't think I've seen that.
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I will try to find it.
-
I have no problem telling you the name. I just can't remember it off the top of my head.
-
So who else was there in the meeting? Fauci left after a couple of minutes.
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He left after a few minutes. I think it DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com was his second in command that was doing most of the questioning, and I can't remember his name. Again, the email should have a list of all the people that were going to be there.
-
Was it Hugh Auchincloss?
-
Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yes.
-
And so was Dr. Fauci there when -- I mean, did he ask you anything specific? Was he part of the conversation at that time? Or did he just say hello and leave?
-
No, no. I think he participated in terms of introducing, asking the question about the new virus and my thoughts about it, I guess, in terms of what I knew at the time, which wasn't a whole lot. But I knew some things.
-
Okay. Do you know who Matt Freeman is?
-
Yeah, I trained him, yeah.
-
I'm going to read you -- again, this has been FOIA'd -- he sent, in a Slack message, and I'm just going to read it out loud. "I talked to Ralph for a long time last night. He sounds beat. His ACE2 mice are breeding up but not ready for anyone to have. He said he sat in Fauci's office talking about the outbreak," and I'm going to ask you, is it chimeras?
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Chimeras. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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Chimeras. I figured it out. "Clearly he is in other kinds of meetings than we are invited to. I joked about his link to WIV but he wasn't very amused. He said that Shi's paper was not approved by the Chinese government and that she may be arrested for it. That's not a good look for anyone. So we just go ahead and keep our head down and get this virus working." So does this reflect what the conversation was?
-
It's a Slack message that people write. It's not to me. Yeah. Certainly the first part, for sure. Ask specific parts of the question.
-
So why would --
-
Sorry. I can't remember.
-
-- Dr. Shi be arrested, because she didn't have the paper approved by the Chinese government?
-
Again, I don't know for the fact why he said that. However, I'm not 100 percent sure that she ever got approval from the Chinese government to send me the sequences. That would be my guess. That would be my guess.
-
So is that something that they have to formally approve?
-
I believe so, yes. And any other attempts to get things out of China. So, for example, a guy named Hongkui Deng made an ACE2 mouse model back in 2005, and I DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com met him. He was at Peking University, and said he'd be glad to share his mice with us. And so we started to do the paperwork, but the Chinese government never allowed it to go through, so the whole thing crashed. So from what I hear from other researchers, it's not an uncommon problem.
-
But that paper had been published.
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That's correct.
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For years. Five years.
-
Yes. Well, no. Yes. Well, I'm talking in the range of around 2006 or 2007. I'm giving you an example of what sort of barriers exist to get samples out of China.
-
But the paper that we're discussing, it was 2015?
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It's 2015. That's correct.
-
And so I guess it's just the Chinese government, I hear they monitor people a lot. They wouldn't have seen that Shi, I mean, Shi was published. It was public.
-
How would I know? How would I know the answer to that question?
-
Did you have discussions with her in that time frame about the paper?
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We certainly shared the preprint of the paper for her to comment on. And it said clearly in the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com paper that she sent us the sequences.
-
No. So when there were these allegations in 2020, early 2020, that that virus could have started the pandemic, did she reach out to you, or did you reach out to her about those accusations?
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I have not reviewed my emails from her back in 2020 or so, in a year or so.
-
So you communicate with her often, or did you?
-
No. Not really. I mean, in reality, oftentimes my relationship with her is described as a long12 term collaborative effort. In fact, we've only published three papers together. One was the 2015 paper, one was 2017 or '18 or so, when we were both working with another collaborator, and I didn't realize she was collaborating with him as well until I saw a draft of the paper.
-
Who was it?
-
That was Fang Li.
-
Fang Li. Okay.
-
And then there was a 2020 or so paper that we published together using the mice that we sent her.
-
Okay. You sent her those mice when?
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It took a couple of years to get all that paperwork through. It was around 2017 or '18.
-
Okay. And did she pay you for them? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Was it a contract?
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No. The agreement was the first paper she writes we'd just be included on it.
-
Okay. Is that how it works?
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That's how I did it. I don't think there's any standardized process. Sometimes we share reagents and we don't ask anything. But if they're going to use a mouse model, which would be a central point for their paper and for countermeasure development, I thought at least in the beginning, at least one paper we should be an author on.
-
So is that like what in-kind support is, or a gift? I've seen that referenced a couple of times, where there's a gift of something, and it's acknowledged in a paper.
-
I don't know if it's a gift or not. I mean, NIH regulations say that if you publish in scientific journals you need to share reagents with people who ask for them. And for many journals they also require that you share reagents with people who ask for them. She's also been a collaborator who, you know, shared sequences with us before they were published, so it seemed like an appropriate thing to do.
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What kind of sequences did she share before? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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The spike genes of SHC014 and WIV1.
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Okay. And she sent it to you via --
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It was electronic.
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Via email?
-
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
-
Okay. And is it that she just attaches it as an attachment.
-
Just a series of nucleotides, 4,000 nucleotides in length.
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Was that the only sequence she sent you or is that a frequent thing?
-
Later on she sent some plasma DNA with the spike gene on them. It says that in the paper, in the acknowledgements section.
-
And that's non-electronic?
-
Huh?
-
That's not sent electronically?
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No, no. That's actually a piece of DNA on a filter paper.
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On a filter. So is that just mailed?
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It was mailed.
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Okay. It doesn't have to be kept at a certain temperature. It's just regular mail.
-
No. I mean, by the time she sent it to us we'd already synthesized the genes and had them and started DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com to make viruses by that time, so we didn't ever actually use the plasma.
-
And so do you have to report this kind of stuff to NIH if they're funding portions of a grant, or the whole grant? Because we're aware of --
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This is before or after? Certainly the NIH knows because a paper, a progress report will have the existence of the viruses that are there. And then it's published, and NIH has access to the paper, as well. So they get this information, yes.
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But it's not something that you --
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I don't believe there's a formalized process for DNA on a filter paper. If there was a pathogen, for example, then there are intricate processes involved.
-
What about for a mouse model?
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Intricate.
-
So do you have to get it approved?
-
You have to get all kinds of approval from China, and you have to get approval to ship -- well, the person who did that in my lab at the time did all that paperwork. But you had to have export approvals to send the stuff, and so it took -- all I remember is it took about a year and a half to get all the paperwork done to ship the mice. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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But the Federal Government was aware, by export. I mean, it's not like they were unaware that this was being shipped. You had to fill out export control documents.
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I think that's correct, yes.
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Through like the Commerce Department.
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I do not know the details.
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Yes.
-
Thank you.
-
So, I mean, I've seen comments where people seemed shocked that the mice ended up there. From your standpoint, is that valid?
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No.
-
Okay. Can you elaborate?
-
Well again, the whole purpose of open science is that reproducibility is key. And so if you publish an important paper, people oftentimes ask you for those reagents to either do extensive additional studies or to actually repeat the studies. And so reproducibility is key, and to do that, that's why the NIH wants you to share reagents with people that ask for things.
-
But the NIH was also concerned when they later learned that potentially these mice were being sold or -- I mean, was that not a concern later on, in 2020?
-
I don't know if NIH was concerned. I know DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com that Ralph Baric was pissed off.
-
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
-
Well, come on. You share an important reagent for countermeasure development to the Chinese that's important early on in their response to a pandemic that's sweeping the world, and then they try to sell it back to U.S. scientists? What kind of crap is this? This is not ethical behavior.
-
How did you find out?
-
Matt Freeman sent me an email with a little thing saying, "Hey, the Chinese are selling your mice."
-
And did you confront --
-
We did. I let the university know and we confronted them, yes, and they killed the mice, from what they told us.
-
How many?
-
I have no idea how many mice they killed.
-
But, I mean, do you know who was doing it?
-
Again, in the email list, the name of the company is listed.
-
I think it was like Genentech, some form of Genentech, something like that.
-
Yeah, I don't remember the name. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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But they got it from WIV --
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Yes.
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-- and they then were -- did they pay her?
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I have no idea.
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Did you ever ask her?
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All I told her is that those mice needed to be destroyed.
-
And did she confirm that they were?
-
They confirmed with the university.
-
We certainly have emails confirming. Of course, that's all we have that they were all --
-
Yeah. How do you confirm that, you know, mice were --
-
Yeah, how do you confirm that?
-
Okay. I mean, so there was generally a sense of trust prior?
-
Well, the whole purpose, again, of open science is to ensure integrity of the process. And I think that was not a validation of the integrity. That was inappropriate behavior by Chinese scientists.
-
And I think, you know, I think part of the problem is that a lot of these things are funded with taxpayer dollars, so people get upset when they find out that that's, right, some of the development of the model is DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com funded with taxpayer funds, U.S. taxpayer funds?
-
Well, that would have been a decade earlier, but yeah, sure.
-
Yes. And then --
-
Those mice were also shared with other U.S. investigators, as well, so it's not like this is -- it's not a fair assessment to say that because you gave it to the Chinese you didn't appropriately use U.S. taxpayer funds. In reality, the regulatory framework of the United States government is that I'm required to share.
-
With the Chinese?
-
With people who request it. Now, if you don't want that to happen then you all should write regulations that prevent that.
-
We have a bill called the Risky Research Act, but I don't know if that addresses that directly. Can I have the --
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I don't think it does.
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If you have suggestions, I mean, we would love suggestions on the bill and also what kind of --
-
I'd be glad to give you my suggestions on the bill.
-
Okay. Can we go back to the 2015 paper? There was a correction issue, right --
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Yes. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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-- in 2020. I forget.
-
Yeah, I think it was -- can you remind me what the correction issue was?
-
Right. So there was a USAID grant.
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Added to it. Wasn't it something like that?
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Right. Yeah. And it was in 2020. So they added it.
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They added it that late?
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I believe so. Do you have the document?
-
Yes, let me find it.
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We have so much stuff it's hard to find it. I mean, do you recall that being a conversation in 2020?
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I recall that we added a grant at a later date to it. I thought it was earlier than that, but I believe what you tell me.
-
Okay. And what is the process for adding? Is it something that happens frequently? Is it something that happens --
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No, it's usually an author will say, "I forgot to include a grant on the acknowledgment line. Can you put that grant onto the acknowledgement line."
-
Is it something that typically happens five years later? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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Not typically, but it does happen.
-
Okay. And who makes that request?
-
I mean, in terms of who requests it with the journal?
-
The journal or --
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That would be me.
-
Do you have to get anything approved with the NIH or anything?
-
No.
-
Okay. So did you make the request?
-
Sure.
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And do you know why you made it at that time?
-
The other author wanted me to add the grant to the line, and they said they'd forgotten it. I had to reason to disbelieve them.
-
And was it Zhengli Shi?
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I think -- this is the AID grant?
-
Yes.
-
I would guess it's Peter Daszak.
-
Okay. And so we have a document that shows that Peter Daszak asked for that, for Zhengli Shi to acknowledge that grant back in 2015.
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And she didn't.
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Right. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
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Okay. Was I on that email?
-
You were, and I don't like talking about an email unless you have it in front of you, so we'll get you that. But are you aware of that?
-
Well, if I was on the email then I was aware of it.
-
Okay. Do you recall it?
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No.
-
Okay.
-
I recall that there was an issue about a grant that they wanted added.
-
Okay.
-
And that was in 2015. So that's what I must have recalled.
-
Okay. But it wasn't added. Was there any reason why you would not have added it at that time?
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Not that I know of.
-
Okay. So here's the email. Your response is dated November 7, 2015, and it's back to Dr. Shi. [Exhibit No. 1 shown.]
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And you asked her, "Was work performed under these grants?" So did she not answer? Because it looks like the initial email was from Peter Daszak that same day and it says, "Urgent. Please acknowledge USAID DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com PREDICT and our NIAID grant in the paper with Ralph Baric." And she does ask you to do that.
-
Well, if she asked me to do it, then I would've done that, yes.
-
So is there a reason why that correction wasn't issued until 2020?
-
Not that I know of.
-
Okay. Was it an attempt conceal the USAID funding?
-
I don't know why I would have any interest in doing that.
-
Okay. Was that the only USAID -- I mean, part of this is it's hard for us to understand, too, because it seems like there are different funding streams that all contribute, for very different work, and, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with my boss's questions to Samantha Power on this, but he asked her if USAID funding had ever -- let's see, I have it here. I don't want to misstate it -- I mean, he said, "Does USAID fund gain-of-function research? We have no evidence that USAID has funded gain-of-function research, and we certainly have not authorized gain-of-function research." Then Senator Paul talked about the paper, and her response was that she just said, unequivocally, that USAID has not authorized gain-of-function research. Do you agree with DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com her statement?
-
I don't know what was in this grant. My guess is that USAID paid for surveillance work that picked up samples that ultimately were used with, you know, in terms of sequence discovery and that sort of thing that we used, and they wanted to acknowledge the fact that the discovery portion of the grant, that that contributed to the discovery portion of the grant. But again, this is not my grant, and it's not in the RO1 that they had with Daszak and Shi were not my grant, so I don't know the intricacies of what was in each and why they felt it was appropriate.
-
In the paper there is a section that makes it clear that the work was done prior to the pause. Is that right?
-
Prior to what?
-
Prior to the pause.
-
Yes, that's correct.
-
Why was that statement included? Was it because there was a concern that it could be perceived that there was gain-of-function work occurring after the pause?
-
I don't recall the exact reason why we put that statement in. It may have been because the journal wanted it written in that it was started prior to the pause. It's technically accurate and honest, and I think that's the most important thing for the reason why the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com statement is in the paper.
-
Was all the work done before the pause, or was it that it was --
-
It was 90 percent done before the pause. We had resurrected the virus, I think, in, I don't know, February, March, April of 2014, and had done a lot of work on them.
-
And so was it NIH's position that anything that was created prior to the pause, you could do any type of work after the pause and it wouldn't be considered gain-of-function?
-
No. That's not correct at all. They reviewed it. Again, you're asking me to describe NIH policy that occurred behind a closed door. So the details of the discussion about what's gain-of-function or what's not is dependent on NIH. My role is to provide them with the information of what I think. They don't have to accept that at all.
-
Have they ever not?
-
Yes.
-
In what cases?
-
I think a grant with Fang Li, they said there were a couple of things they didn't want us to work on. They suggested we find different viruses in all of the experimental plan, which we did. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
-
And what grant was that? Was it a coronavirus grant?
-
Definitely.
-
Okay.
-
And Fang Li would've been on it. So there are two Fang Li grants, one that I led that he was co-PI on and one that he led that I was co-PI on. We can provide you with those numbers, but I can't tell you what they are off the top of my head.
-
And what's your relationship with Fang Li?
-
He's a friend.
-
A friend. Okay. And you've all worked together so you all have grants together?
-
We have a grant that is pending at NIH right now, 2 percentile, that is paused right now. We're waiting to see, from what I understand, of whether or not there's a potential GOF experiment in it or not.
-
A potential what?
-
Gain-of-function experiment.
-
Oh, okay. So it's under the gain-of22 function pause.
-
Well, as told to me, as told to Fang Li, actually, there is one experiment that they think needs to be reviewed by the new committee that is formed after the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Trump administration formed that committee.
-
Which hasn't been formed.
-
That's correct.
-
So it's indefinitely paused.
-
It is in purgatory, yes.
-
Okay. And what is the work, specifically?
-
Most of the work was on mouse hepatitis virus. One of the aims included some merbecoviruses, specifically two merbecoviruses called MERS-422 and MjHKU4. And there's some mouse data in there that they want to have reviewed.
-
Is there a process for --
-
Is there a process? I have no idea. All I know is that the Trump administration has formed a committee to come up with final policy recommendations for what is gain-of-function and what's not. And so in the grant, because there was no structure except the existing 2016 structure, we said depending on however those reviews work, we will work within the context of the new structure, because we have no idea of what they're going to say is GOF or not.
-
Which was kind of what happened before, right, that it was an NIH decision, or was there more interaction previously? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
-
You need to put that sentence in context. I'm not sure what you're referring to.
-
Well, you said that you didn't know how the P3 -- or I can't remember -- the process worked prior, when it was an NIH decision, and you just sent them what you believed, and then they would make the ultimate decision.
-
Well, you would realize it would be a conflict of interest if I participated in such a discussion. We would have a very different conversation here, and the conversation would be do you think it's right that I would be in the committee meeting advocating for my own research. And I don't think that's right.
-
Well, and I think, you know, we are aware you weren't in the committee meeting, but there were discussions back and forth, and there were --
-
No. I sent them a document. They reviewed it. They asked for clarification, and then I responded to that. And then they approved it in April of 2015.
-
Did you ever write the limitations of the work?
-
Describe the limitation you're referring to.
-
We'll get that document. But did you DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com ever, basically what logs you had to report and immediately stop work?
-
Say that again.
-
Did NIH ever adopt your language that you had provided to them on stopped work and at what point you would have to?
-
Oh, are you talking about parameters that we might use to determine whether we would pause the research in place --
-
Right.
-
-- notify NIH, and then yes, have a discussion about what to do, including destruction of viruses. I don't know if they implemented that as a policy or not. They might well have, because one of my documents would have been one of the first ones that they reviewed. Against, that's a decision that NIH has to come up with, not me.
-
And I think they did. But, you know, I think -- and that's a question that we have is, is it appropriate or not. It sounds like NIH didn't even keep documents of those interactions.
-
I think that's probably a misstatement on your part.
-
Okay.
-
They may not be aware they had the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com documents at the time. But if I gave the impression that they didn't have the documents, that's probably not correct.
-
Okay.
-
There seemed to be the upper administration didn't know where the documents were.
-
Okay. Have they tried to find them?
-
How would I know? I would hope they would.
-
So can we go back to early January. Let's go back to February, February 1st. Were you on the Proximal Origins call?
-
You mean the call that NIH had on the origins?
-
The one that the authors of Proximal Origins were on the initial call, February 1st.
-
I was on a call around February 1st.
-
Not February 3rd.
-
Again, the people that were on the call that I was on, and maybe that's the best way to say it, was Jeremy Farrar, Fauci, the three evolutionary biologists --
-
Who?
-
Kristian Andersen, Bob Garry, and the guy from Australia.
-
Eddie Holmes? DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
-
Eddie Holmes. Thank you. You notice I have a problem with names.
-
I mean, this sounds like the Proximal Origins call.
-
I don't know if it was the Proximal Origins call. The purpose of the call was to discuss -- oh, the other person was Ron Fouchier, as well, and Ian Lipkin may have been on the call, as well. Whichever that call was, I was on, okay.
-
Did you speak?
-
No.
-
Who invited you to that call?
-
I don't recall.
-
You're not on any of the invitation lists, and it's a question. And you don't recall?
-
I don't recall. I actually looked at all my records and I can't find the reason why I was on the call.
-
Do you recall what was discussed on the call?
-
Yeah. The purpose of the call was to talk about origins and potential origins. Most of the discussion was led by the evolutionary biologists, who were actually probably the most key, important people in the room. And what they said was that they thought it was DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com extremely unlikely that there was any evidence of genetic engineering of the virus, but that they had trouble distinguishing between natural evolutionary processes in cell culture versus animals. And that became sort of the consensus, that it evolved by natural evolutionary processes.
-
And then what else did they discuss. Natural origin, that it evolved naturally?
-
Well, that's natural origin process that either occurs through nature or natural evolutionary processes that might occur in cell cultures. They're really hard to tell apart.
-
I'm not a scientist, so natural origin, to me genetically engineered or accidental release? And correct me.
-
So accidental release would have fallen under the category of natural evolutionary processes in cell culture.
-
That could have been adapted in the lab.
-
That's correct.
-
And so that was the focus of the call. But it sounds like you didn't speak.
-
That's correct.
-
It's surprising because you're an expert in this field. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
-
Not really.
-
Oh, you're not? Okay.
-
So before that I had made a presentation to a group that talked about three possibilities for the origin of the virus. If I spoke, I could change the direction of the conversation, and I wanted to hear what the evolutionary biologists had to say.
-
What was the presentation that you're referring to?
-
I think this falls under the category that is later today, although you have made the document public.
-
It was provided to us, and, you know, I'll go ahead and my team is going to --
-
I have no problem talking about the paper, but it sounded like it fell under the category of this was this afternoon.
-
Well, I mean, this is something that I would like to put on the record, because --
-
Let's see what the question is.
-
Yeah. I think that's fair. BSEG is not classified. We've had this conversation with -- and this isn't on you, but, you know, people like to talk about it like it's classified. It's not classified.
-
Can I ask a point of clarification?
-
Mm-hmm. DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com
-
So certainly when BSEG started it was not classified. But I recall being told it was classified sometime later.
-
I'm not going to use the individual's name, but I'll just show you the name. This is an individual who is on that committee, who is, that is his law firm website that publicly says that he is a member. So that's one of many examples.
-
Yeah, he was certainly a member early on, and early on in BSEG they actually encouraged people to put their membership on that committee. And then later there was discussions that said that they wanted us to strip all that off of our material.
-
And just to note, this is a March 2015 doc.
-
Right.
-
also stepped down from that committee at some point. I don't remember the exact date, but he stepped down from it, yeah.
-
Also we've confirmed --
-
I'm sorry I just mentioned his name, if you'd redact that.
-
We will redact that. I don't want there to be any confusion. We've looked at NARA documents that are publicly available online that mention the ODNI DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com Biological Science Expert Group. And this isn't on you, but there's this secrecy about this group that has caused a lot of confusion and frustration probably among you, as well. But this isn't classified, and I am fine to hold back our questions, generally, on that until later, even ones that aren't classified, just so everyone feels comfortable. But we will be going through a classification review of that transcript, and it's not classified, so I just want to flag that. But I think we have made it public, sir. Are you at least comfortable talking about the presentation here, the presentation that was given? It was public.
-
I think it would be better to discuss it in the classified session, since there's going to be a classified session anyway.
-
Okay.
-
We have 4 1/2 hours --
-
Can I just ask, that presentation, did you present three different potential origin options?
-
Yes.
-
And what were they?
-
Natural origins, laboratory escape, and genetic engineering.
-
Okay. And then was that your position - - when you presented it, was it these are all of the DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com possible options? Was it these are the likely options? This is one I think is more likely than not?
-
Oh --
-
At that time did you have a position?
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Yes. I put it in that order. Most likely natural origin, I couldn't rule out laboratory escape. Genetic engineering was unlikely, but it needed to be reviewed by evolutionary biologists.
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Okay. And so you didn't speak on the February 1st call because of that presentation.
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That's correct.