(A)Political - June 13th

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Outgoing DNI leader released information that the U.S. funded biolabs in Ukraine. A finalized Memorandum of Understanding has now been agreed to between Iran and the U.S. A federal judge is preventing Ken Paxton (Texas AG) from suing a left leaning democrat political organization.

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Outgoing D.N.I Leader Reveals U.S. Funded Biolabs In Ukraine

_{By: Atlas}

Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released declassified material on Friday that her office says documents longstanding U.S. government funding for more than 120 biological laboratories in over 30 countries, including Ukraine, framing the disclosure as evidence of a program that officials hid from the public.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the records, the product of months spent combing through intelligence holdings, show that many of the labs have conducted research on hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases involving gain-of-function work, with little oversight. Gabbard accused past officials, naming Dr. Anthony Fauci and members of the Biden administration's national security team, of having "lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs," and of threatening those who tried to expose them.

The release lands days before Gabbard leaves her post, and it reopens a fight over a set of facts that are partly settled and partly disputed. That U.S. funding helped run labs abroad, including in Ukraine, is not in question. The characterization Gabbard attached to it, that the labs were secret and concealed, is what drew immediate and heavy pushback.

What the records describe

According to the disclosure, more than 40 of the labs are in Ukraine, where facilities handled Soviet-era pathogens. The documents list agents studied at various sites, among them anthrax, tularemia, tuberculosis, MERS, SARS, Marburg, Ebola, Lassa, and the plague.

The slides, declassified in late April and released Friday, describe facilities supported under the Defense Department's Cooperative Threat Reduction program, a post-Cold War effort launched in the 1990s to secure pathogens and weapons material left behind by the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, by the Pentagon's own fact sheets, the program has operated since 2005 and invested roughly $200 million to upgrade Ukrainian-run public-health and veterinary labs. One newly declassified slide reflects an earlier intelligence assessment that a veterinary lab in Kharkiv likely held dangerous pathogens and was vulnerable to Russian seizure or damage.

ODNI said Gabbard had directed the intelligence community to step up collection on the labs, and that early reporting was surfacing clinical trials at some sites that raised what it called ethical, financial, and security concerns. No countries other than Ukraine were named in the released documents.

A program that has been public for years

Much of what the disclosure describes has been on the record for some time. The program in question, sometimes known by the names of its original sponsors as Nunn-Lugar, has been the subject of published Pentagon fact sheets, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv described the cooperation in 2020. The United States is a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975.

The work also surfaced publicly at the start of Russia's invasion. In March 2022, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told a Senate committee that Ukraine had "biological research facilities" and that Washington was concerned Russian forces might seek to seize them. Other administration officials moved to dismiss broader claims the following day. In 2023, the State Department accused Moscow of escalating disinformation about biological weapons to deflect from its invasion and erode support for Ukraine.

A wave of criticism

Gabbard's framing met sharp resistance from biosecurity specialists and lawmakers, who said it gave fresh life to a narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to help justify the invasion.

Josh Segal, a biological weapons expert who has served on U.S. arms control delegations, said he was confused as to why the office would revive what he called a misleading narrative the intelligence community had long understood to be a Russian trope, one the first Trump administration had worked to knock down. The labs, he said, were never secret and do no questionable work, and the cooperation began as a publicized effort to convert former Soviet facilities, with Russian participation continuing until about a decade ago. The same program, he noted, destroyed 12 tons of weaponized anthrax that the Soviets had abandoned in the Aral Sea.

Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat, called the disclosure recycled Kremlin propaganda, noting that facility lists had been posted publicly by the State Department and the embassy in Kyiv and that the first Trump administration had funded the same research. Critics outside government echoed the point, with one Economist editor describing the release as a conspiracy theory masquerading as intelligence. The pushback was not limited to Gabbard's opponents; the pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer faulted members of her own side for embracing the claims, arguing that Russia was exploiting the moment. Supporters, including some members of Congress, praised the release as an act of transparency.

Timing and a transition at ODNI

Gabbard tied the disclosure to Executive Order 14292, which Trump signed on May 25, 2025, to end federal funding of gain-of-function research abroad, particularly in countries such as China where the administration argued oversight was lacking. The release came a day after Sen. Rand Paul circulated documents of his own alleging that Fauci had leaned on intelligence ties to shape the debate over COVID-19's origins, and an ODNI official has said Gabbard is working to release records on the pandemic's origins before she leaves.

That departure is near. Gabbard, who has said she is stepping down to help her husband through treatment for a rare cancer, is set to leave the office later this month. Trump has named Jay Clayton, currently the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his choice to lead the intelligence community, with a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for June 17. The leadership handoff has been complicated by a separate fight over surveillance authorities, leaving the office in transition as its final declassifications land.

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