The FBI under President Trump’s administration has reportedly recovered a cell phone and multiple hard drives believed to have belonged to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former White House chief medical advisor during the Covid-19 pandemic, FBI Director Kash Patel revealed in a recent interview.
Patel disclosed the recovery during his appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, calling it “a great breakthrough.”
He explained that investigators had faced challenges locating the digital devices Fauci used while leading the medical response.
The devices could contain information on key pandemic decisions, including lockdown measures, mask mandates, and Fauci’s department’s financial ties to research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The WIV remains central to the lab-leak theory that Covid-19 may have accidentally escaped from a Chinese lab.
The FBI director stated the devices were obtained shortly before the interview but did not specify the timeframe of their use or how they confirmed the devices’ association with Fauci.
Details on the seizure process or any related warrants remain undisclosed.
Patel also declined to share findings from the agency’s ongoing “multiple investigations” into the pandemic’s origins.
Patel warned that not all potentially relevant information might be available on the devices, as data could have been deleted.
Nevertheless, he called the recovery “a victory for the American people,” stressing the importance of determining whether Fauci deliberately misled the public.
“Did he intentionally mislead the world and cause countless deaths? We owe those answers to the American people,” Patel said.
Seizing a government official’s phone generally requires legal authorization, but no public warrants targeting Fauci have been disclosed.
How the FBI acquired the phone and hard drives remains unclear, according to the Daily Mail.
The FBI and the CIA both support the theory that Covid-19 most likely originated from the Wuhan lab, which conducted risky coronavirus experiments before the pandemic began.
Some of this research was funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars through grants overseen by Fauci’s former agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
A federal watchdog previously reported that NIH failed to effectively monitor these high-risk experiments or assess their pandemic potential.
Fauci, initially regarded as a steady presence during the early, uncertain days of the pandemic, has since faced scrutiny over inconsistent messaging and efforts to dismiss the lab-leak hypothesis.
Leaked emails revealed Fauci commissioned a paper in early 2020 that denounced the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy.
Fauci later promoted the paper publicly without disclosing his involvement.
In 2021, he described the lab-leak possibility as “a very, very, very, very remote possibility,” though privately he acknowledged concerns about a lab accident.
International intelligence agencies have also lent support to the lab-leak explanation.
Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) conducted a classified investigation during the pandemic.
Their report, shared with U.S. officials in late 2024, cited unpublished dissertations from 2019 and 2020 and concluded the lab-leak theory was “probable” with an 80 to 95 percent likelihood.
Robert Redfield, former CDC director during the pandemic, has criticized American and British agencies for suppressing investigations into a potential lab leak.
Redfield told the Daily Mail that he is “100 percent” convinced Covid resulted from Wuhan lab scientists becoming infected during high-risk experiments carried out under poor safety conditions.
Fauci has consistently denied suppressing lab-leak theories or interfering with related research. In testimony before a House panel in 2024, he called accusations of a cover-up “preposterous.”
Patel summed up his commitment to the investigation: “My mission has always been to put out the truth, whatever the consequences, whoever it’s against.”
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