Revisiting Ralph Baric's early lies
He lied to Congress, DoD, DHS, DTRA, fellow virologists & 8 billion people
New Baric email
Apparently, Peter Daszak, Linfa Wang, and Zhengli Shi invited Ralph Baric to the DARPA Defuse team in January 2018.
This aligns with a previously released email from EcoHealth when Daszak and Shi visited DARPA in June 2017.
James Gimlett of DARPA testified that he was interested in SARS-like viruses from China and self-spreading vaccines but wasn’t comfortable with Baric’s engineering. Baric wrote the 2018 GoF exemption in DARPA Defuse: “These use bat-SARS-CoV backbones, not SARS-CoV, and are exempt from dual-use gain of function concerns.”
In March 2018, Jon Epstein of EcoHealth asked Baric for the “dual use safety language.” After Baric called DARPA Defuse a “marvelous opportunity” in January 2018, he “forgot” about the DARPA Defuse bid by 2020. Baric testified:
Committee: At that (Feb 14, 2020) meeting (with Fauci), did you bring up the DEFUSE proposal to DARPA?
Baric: No.
Committee: Why not?
Baric: Mostly because I had forgotten about the DEFUSE proposal in DARPA, quite frankly. I read a lot of grants. And so the grant was not funded, so I moved on.
Committee follow up: You mentioned that in the first hour, but essentially, you kind of forgot about the DEFUSE proposal.
Baric: Yes, I did. People probably say no chance.
Baric’s Lancet letter
Baric was part of reference #1, 8, and 13 of the Lancet letter condemning lab leak conspiracy theories.
Daszak organized the Lancet letter in the early morning hours of Feb 6, 2020:
Daszak’s Feb 2020 Lancet letter draft included:
But Daszak talked to Linfa Wang, he deleted their names hours later:
Baric called it a “good decision” since “our collaboration” was a revised version of DARPA Defuse. Daszak used three of his references. One of those Baric references ignored the SARS2 furin cleavage site. Another renamed the Wuhan pneumonia to SARS2. This was a linguistic coup, tagging SARS2 origins to China. The last Lancet reference used the National Academy of Science (NASEM), organized by Fauci, where Baric attacked Kristian Andersen.
Fauci’s coverup
Fauci secretly invited Baric to listen to Kristian Andersen’s engineering concerns on Feb 1, 2020. Baric testified:
Committee: The Feb 1st call with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Andersen, and Dr. Farrar, and ten or so others, we have gotten emails from almost every American participant on the call, and haven't seen your name come up anywhere. So I was surprised to hear that you were on it. But I want to confirm that you were on the call?
Baric: I think I was…I must have been on that call. (Andersen) may not have known it.
Baric believed it was public record that he was on the Feb 1 call, but it wasn’t. Kristian Andersen confirmed that he didn’t know Baric was on the Feb 1 call.
On Feb 1, Kristian Andersen used Shi’s RaTG13 genome to prove Baric’s SARS2 genome was engineered. This was slide 3 of 5 from his PowerPoint presentation.
Zoom in on the RaTG13 gap exposing Baric’s PRRAR furin cleavage site in SARS2:
This is the smoking gun for genetic engineering, and I included this genetic alignment on my book's front and back cover. Before opening the book, you look at what Fauci and Baric saw on Feb 1, 2020.
Two days later, Fauci organized a Feb 3, 2020, NASEM meeting with Andersen, Baric, Stanley Perlman, FBI, White House OSTP, and others. Baric then “attacked” Andersen in front of everyone:
Committee: Regarding this (Feb 3rd) meeting, (Andersen) said something about you, and I would like to get your side of the story on what he said. So this is…
Baric: Hopefully, he didn't say anything negative.
Committee: This is a quote from Dr. Andersen's Slack messages. “I should mention that Ralph Baric pretty much attacked me on the call with NASEM, essentially calling anything related to potential lab escape ludicrous, crackpot theories. I wonder if he, himself, is worried about this, too.”
I'm just trying to get your side of this.
Baric: Can you read that again?
After being attacked by Baric, Andersen retreats from his engineering concerns in this Feb 4 email, calling it a crackpot theory that SARS2 was “engineered with intent.”
SARS2 was “engineered with intent” because Baric and Vincent Munster inserted the furin cleavage site into the bat vaccine/virus to enter the bat cell, which also has furin.
Before Shi published RaTG13 (96% similar sarbecovirus), Baric and Daszak used the irrelevant Rp3 2004 sample (~92% similar) on Jan 12.
The SARS2 genome was published on Jan 10, but the furin cleavage site stuck out like a sore thumb once Shi published RaTG13 on Jan 24.
Shi’s latest HKU5 publication made the news, but she still uses Vero cells, which deleted the SARS2 furin cleavage site. Baric used human airway epithelial cells, which don’t delete the site.
On Feb 4, 2020, NASEM then asked Baric for a natural origin reference, and he ironically referenced RaTG13.
NASEM asked Baric if Shi’s RaTG13 paper was the best reference for a natural origin.
The final NASEM letter to the White House used Baric’s reference #4 to claim natural origin.
The NASEM letter was then used in the Lancet letter. Again, all this happened after Shi published RaTG13 on Jan 24, 2020, and Baric told Fauci Shi could be arrested for doing it.
In 2024, the Covid committee asked Baric, what was in your freezer?
Committee: I guess my question is, Shi Zhengli went back to her holdings and found RaTG13. I don't know if you did a similar one just to see if you had something similar from a previous --
Baric: I don't do surveillance.
Committee: Well, that would be --
Baric: So I don't go out and collect bat samples. I had a research assistant professor that did some bat discovery work in Maryland, and he found mostly group 1 coronaviruses at the time. So we didn't -- I don't do bat discovery, so I don't have large repositories of bat samples to look for coronaviruses.
Committee: Okay.
Baric: I usually look for sequences, and if I find something interesting, then I'll go after it.
Just like in 2015, when Shi shared SHC014 with Baric before publication, the same happened with RaTG13. In 2020, Trump canceled the 2019 R01 grant, which Baric was on.
Baric: It would have been going in -- if year 6 was around 2019 or 2020, that's when I would have been a part of it. My role was to study a couple of the viruses that the Wuhan Institute of Virology found that they were willing to share with me. So I always viewed that as not number one or number two on the list, maybe number five or number six on the list.
The “shared” bat sample was RaTG13, which fits Baric’s 25% profile from 2015. The year six 2019 R01 grant was the DARPA Defuse TA1 scope of work. In other words, Shi collects SARS-like samples that are 15-25% different, like RaTG13 and Baric inserts furin cleavage sites for testing on live Chinese horseshoe bats in Wuhan.
Baric’s a ghostwriter in Proximal Origins
The Proximal Origin paper had an odd footnote #20, which started with Kristian Andersen’s email to NASEM on Feb 4, 2020.
This footnote interested Jeffrey Sachs on
podcast.The 2020 footnote #20 referenced 2014 research by Baric’s old Spanish buddy, Luis Enjuanes, not Baric’s reverse genetic system from 2017. That 2017 paper outlined type IIS restriction sites (BsmBI, BsaI, BsaXI).
Proximal Origin ghostwriter
Baric was the main ghostwriter for the Proximal Origin paper. To be more precise, Bob Garry of Tulane used Baric’s references to argue the SARS2 RBD was not ideal. Bob used the verbiage below from Baric’s January 2020 paper, reference #7, in the Proximal Origin paper.
In May 2020, Baric praised Proximal Origin’s “genetic and biological data as strong evidence against deliberate generation, and the arguments are compelling.”
Chapter 25, Open Letter to Baric, outlines how he helped turn Andersen’s one-page lab leak report into the Proximal Origin paper. I thought this chapter was so condescending and controversial (my editor wouldn’t edit it), but most readers were shocked by Chapter 1.
If you still believe that Shi engineered SARS2, then published RaTG13; in the book, I call you naive, but in the blog, I called (Richard Ebright) a simpleton. At the same time, while Ebright was telling US and Chinese media there was absolutely no evidence of genetic engineering, Kristian Andersen wanted to call the FBI and CIA. But Baric attacked him before he could do that.
Baric referenced Perlman in 2019
On Feb 4, 2020, Perlman from the University of Iowa was also concerned about the furin cleavage site but talked himself out of SARS2 furin cleavage site engineering.
In late 2019, Baric referenced Perlman's 2017 paper, which was a “precise molecular blueprint” for the SARS2 genome. I didn’t even include this evidence in the book.
The 2017 molecular blueprint had pat7 (a molecular address label), which shows a pattern of 7 amino acids. The first is always proline (P), explaining the PRRAR furin cleavage site. Natural origin virologists, like Baric, claimed no one would insert a proline.
Baric’s proline testimony in 2024
Baric claimed the proline (P in PRRAR) was a bad engineering decision in his 2024 testimony.
In the SARS2 sequence, you only need to insert three amino acids to make a furin cleavage site. Four is a nucleotide. Four amino acids went in asymmetrically. Why would anybody engineer that and do it that way, putting in an extra residue which is a proline, which puts kinks in proteins, it usually screws things up.
In 2023, Sachs and Neil Harrison published the BsaXI restriction flanking (Baric’s) furin cleavage site, which forced the proline that Baric denigrates in his own 2024 testimony!
ENaC
Columbia professors Neil Harrison and Jeff Sachs published UNC’s 2018 research on ENaC. Baric's IBF notes show his UNC lab experimented with ENaC in 2019. ENaC is the SARS2 furin cleavage site (RRAR/SVAS). Ebright then attacked Harrison and Sachs for straying from the Wuhan narrative. Remember, if a virus is engineered, that does not tell us where it was engineered.
What did Baric know & when?
Chinese virologist Yongzhen Zhang from Shanghai was the first to upload the SARS2 genome:
Zhang insists he first uploaded the genome to the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on Jan. 5—an assertion corroborated by the submission date listed on the U.S government institution’s Genbank. “When we posted the genome on Jan. 5, 2020, the United States certainly knew about this virus,” he says.
Ralph Baric testified that he saw the SARS2 genome around Jan 6.
Committee: For the January 6th paper you reviewed, do you recall if that had the sequence of the virus?
Baric: It did. When it was first sent, it did not. All three reviewers immediately asked for the sequence.
Committee: Do you recall what the paper was?
Baric: So review processes are normally confidential, so if I tell you what journal it is and this comes out, then I -- can we go off the record, so I can tell you that?
Committee: We can go off the record and talk about it, and determine what to do. And I can talk to Clark about redacting if we need to.
Baric: Just the review process is supposed to be confidential. So I would prefer that it remain confidential, although I guess, to some extent, the paper got accepted.
The Zhang Nature paper that Baric discussed “off the record” had Eddie Holmes as a co-author. Holmes did not know SARS2 was engineered when they published the SARS2 sequence in early January 2020.
Neither did Robert Garry of Tulane, but he knew SARS2 had a furin cleavage site. None would suspect engineering until two weeks later.
Holmes and Garry joined Andersen in the engineered camp, but only after Shi uploaded RaTG13 on Jan 24 to GISAID, exposing Baric’s PRRAR furin cleavage site. This is why Matt Ridley and Alina Chan inferred in Chapter 1 of their book, Viral, that Shi published RaTG13 after the Feb 1 call. But Shi kickstarted the coverup. This is why Ebright can’t answer why Shi even published RaTG13 (it costs $20k to publish RaTG13 in Nature).
At first glance, when analyzing the alignment of the S protein sequence of both, it is natural that the issue of an engineered insertion should be considered. On either side of the new furin site, the RaTG13 amino acid sequence is identical in both from aa614 to aa1133 – an apparent insert of PRRA is the only difference in an otherwise 100% conserved 519 amino acid region.
The Covid committee asked Baric if he had seen the furin cleavage site in early 2020.
Committee: Dr. Baric, you referenced receiving a January 6th paper that was subsequently published?
Baric: 6th or 7th.
Committee: It was subsequently published in Nature, showing that the virus -- the unknown outbreak was caused by a coronavirus.
Baric: Yes.
Committee: And then you mentioned earlier that the sequence of the virus was not initially provided. Do you recall when you got access to the sequence?
Baric: Within about 12 hours from requesting it from the journal. And just for point of clarity, I knew it was a coronavirus before I received the paper.
Committee: Do you recall if that version of the sequence had the furin cleavage site in it?
Baric: Are you asking me in the context of January 6th or 7th, or are you asking me in the context of --
Committee: You don't recall seeing a sequence that omitted --
Baric: No.
Committee: the furin cleavage site?
Baric: No, it was not omitted.
Awkward because Baric famously missed the furin cleavage site during his Congressional presentation in February 2020.
Baric gave a one-hour technical presentation to Congressional staff. He should have mentioned the pandemic potential of the SARS2 furin cleavage site while comparing the SARS2 genome to SARS1, which lacked a furin cleavage site.
One month later, on March 4, 2020, DHS, DoD, and DTRA representatives asked Baric if SARS2 looked engineered; Baric replied, “No, there is absolutely no evidence this virus is bioengineered.”
Baric didn’t publically mention the SARS2 furin cleavage site until May 2022.
Reader Q&A
Reader
brought attention to Baric showing off his SARS2 chimera in a 2018 presentation.
HKU3-S + BtCoV 279-S = SARS2 genome, a 20% difference from SARS1. In the blue column, notice Baric has no “chimeric infect” studies yet.
Baric is shopping his novel SARS2-like genome because it works for vaccine trials in vivo.
In DARPA Defuse, Baric wanted to test his patented SARS2 chimera, called HKU3-Smix, on mice and bats in Wuhan using Dani Anderson’s animal lab, but Ebright claimed “arrant nonsense.”
This is why Shi published RaTG13 and told the New York Times that “my” lab was not involved in gain of function, and “I” did nothing wrong, so “I” have nothing to fear. Neither did Vincent Munster or Baric—until DARPA Defuse leaked in 2021.
Munster’s Jan 10, 2020, email to Baric, linking to the SARS2 genome, means they are in the clear. Since the closest known genomes were about 10% away from SARS2, nothing can be traced back to their collaboration. But when Shi published RaTG13 two weeks later, it kick-started the coverup.
RaTG13 was 4% different from SARS2 (aka consensus sequence), just as Baric predicted in 2018.
Baric released one post-pandemic email to the Covid committee, blaming Shi’s BSL2. Otherwise, he is still fighting the USRTK lawsuit for his 2018-19 emails with Munster and Dani Anderson’s BSL4 labs.
Kopp's piece from 9/2024 includes this:
"After the pandemic arose, Morens and another NIAID scientist named Jeffery Taubenberger wrote an editorial defending EcoHealth and referred to people concerned about gain-of-function research as “luddites” and “the complaining crowd.”
This reminded me of how a network of(grant-receiving) research scientists within and without USA have acted together totally 'under the radar' to reinforce each others claims to legitimacy in their GOF work. I find no mention of either Kawaoka,(U Wisconsin/Kobe Japan)Fouchier(Holland)or Kobinger(Manitoba)here, and even on the RTK site itself, only Kawaoka is referenced, and that only this very month of 02/2025.
Without each of whom, it can be argued, none of the work finally 'packaged' as SarsCovid19 could have been done. At least 5 country's government & labs appear to have been wittingly involved in the creation process. For that degree of cooperation/collusion to remain so occluded speaks to both the illicit intent and top level involvement of what one is forced to conclude must be an interlocking medical/judicial/political 'mafia' that has no recognition of putative 'national sovereignties or legacy concepts like 'human rights.'
Wow this is really something. Holy smokes.