Transcript segment

Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted), pp.10-11 · baric_ti:utt:00030

Date: 2026-04-10 09:00 (day precision)
Type: transcript segment · interview
recipient: Ralph S. Baric, Harry Kazenoff, David T. Lambeth III, William Henderson, Clark Ervin, Jake Greenberg
speaker: Christina Salazar
Topics: Intelligence community assessments Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis

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.

Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
But we haven't had a chance to engage directly, but your team has provided us documents, and we appreciate that.	own voice, substantive	speaker_own	asserts
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.	own voice, substantive	speaker_own	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

But we haven't had a chance to engage directly, but your team has provided us documents, and we appreciate that.

own voice, substantive

speaker_own

asserts

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.

own voice, substantive

speaker_own

asserts

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

2026-04-10 09:00 Ralph S. Baric open

My wife is going to insist that she knows what happens in this meeting. I hope that's okay.
2026-04-10 09:00 Harry Kazenoff open

Do you have any questions before we begin?
2026-04-10 09:00 Ralph S. Baric open

No.
2026-04-10 09:00 Harry Kazenoff open

Thank you.
2026-04-10 09:00 Christina Salazar

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.
2026-04-10 09:00 Ralph S. Baric open

It's a pleasure to be here.
2026-04-10 09:00 Christina Salazar open

Thank you. I wanted to start, obviously, you gave testimony in the House.
2026-04-10 09:00 Ralph S. Baric open

I did.
2026-04-10 09:00 Christina Salazar open

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.

Full conversation →