FBI expands COVID-19 probe to Nobel laureate, Fauci associates, NYT reports

The FBI and federal prosecutors have gathered evidence involving former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and Nobel laureates in connection with the origins of COVID-19, The New York Times reported Saturday (local time).

Drawing on current and former officials familiar with the investigation and documents it obtained independently, the Times reported that FBI agents and federal prosecutors have collected evidence related to at least eight scientists, including Fauci. Investigators sought phone records, emails, and records of research funding and financial payments tied to those individuals. How far the investigation has progressed and what evidence it has secured remain unclear.

The probe represents a significant expansion from what began as an FBI inquiry into whether the COVID-19 virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

Under the Joe Biden administration, the FBI focused primarily on whether the virus originated at the Wuhan lab. Since the Donald Trump administration took office, investigators have added new figures to their scope and intensified their work, the Times reported.

Investigators are looking into whether scientists played a role in downplaying the possibility that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory, according to the report.

Fauci, who led the US government's pandemic response, has been at the center of the controversy. Republicans have alleged that National Institutes of Health funding flowed to virus research in Wuhan and that Fauci lied to Congress while attempting to minimize or deny that connection. Fauci has denied those allegations, maintaining that he testified truthfully before Congress.

The investigation has extended to other scientists as well. A September 2025 document reviewed by the Times identified Richard Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993, as among those under scrutiny. Roberts organized a letter condemning the first Trump administration's 2020 decision to cancel funding for EcoHealth Alliance, a US nonprofit that had conducted joint research with the Wuhan lab on coronaviruses.

David Morens, a former adviser to Fauci, pleaded guilty last month to charges including concealing federal records by routing government emails through a personal account.

Federal prosecutors in Maryland, who handled that case, also sought materials related to emails Fauci sent from a personal account to certain researchers, as well as records concerning potential intervention on behalf of federal grant recipients and whether any payments were received in return, according to the report.