Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted) — page 10

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? DR. BARIC: My wife is going to insist that she knows what happens in this meeting. I hope that's okay. MR. KAZENOFF: Do you have any questions before we begin? DR. BARIC: No. MR. KAZENOFF: Thank you. MS. 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