The Trump administration is investigating the U.S.-funded Ukrainian biolabs that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was previously smeared as “treasonous” and “traitorous” for bringing to the public’s attention.
Then
Gabbard issued a video statement while a private citizen in 2022 where she claimed that “there are 25-30 U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine. According to the U.S. government, these biolabs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens.”
In order to mitigate the risk of breaches at the facilities, Gabbard said that “these labs need to be shut down immediately, and the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed.”
‘The era of lies and betrayal is over.’
Gabbard was viciously attacked over the video even though days earlier, then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland — a woman whose meddling in Ukrainian affairs helped pave the way for the ruinous overthrow of its previous government — admitted that such labs existed.
Nuland testified to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee both that “Ukraine has biological research facilities” and the U.S. government was worried that “Russian forces may be seeking to gain control” of “research materials” in the labs. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) then steered Nuland into prophesying that should there be a biological or chemical incident in Ukraine, the Russians would necessarily be to blame.
Following Nuland’s admissions, then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee that Ukraine “operates a little over a dozen” biolabs for bio-defense; that the U.S. had “provided assistance” to the labs, at least “in the context of biosafety”; and there was room for misuse of “some of the material that’s there that is not intended for weapon purposes but nevertheless could be used in dangerous ways.”
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Arun SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images
The Pentagon also noted in a fact sheet that month that the U.S., through the Biological Threat Reduction Program, had by that point dumped roughly $200 million in Ukraine since 2005 “supporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.”
The fact sheet noted further that BTRP sought to help the Ukrainians “consolidate and secure pathogens and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report disease outbreaks before they pose security or stability threats.”
Despite the Biden administration bolstering in advance the claims that Gabbard would make in her March 13, 2022, video, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused Gabbard of “parroting false Russian propaganda” and spreading “treasonous lies” that “may well cost lives.”
Then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a Ukraine hawk who later stumped for Kamala Harris’ doomed presidential campaign, shared Gabbard’s video, writing, “Actual Russian propaganda. Traitorous.”
Gabbard noted that such remarks were “slanderous” and stuck to her guns.
Now
Now in a position to do the work she took abuse recommending the government do in 2022, Gabbard is investigating over 120 biolabs outside the U.S. that have been funded by American taxpayers.
The spy chief told the New York Post on Monday that her team will “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and well-being of the American people and the world.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” Gabbard said. “Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals, like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these US-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.”
ODNI officials confirmed that more than 40 of the biolabs under investigation are — as Gabbard indicated four years ago — in Ukraine and could “be at risk of compromise” due to the ongoing war.
Trump ODNI officials said that the Biden administration’s mixed messaging about the Ukrainian biolabs were part of an “Information Resilience” strategy to “shape the public narrative” to simultaneously “mitigate and counter foreign malign influence” and downplay American ties to the war-zone research. In other words, they were pushing falsehoods domestically to neutralize foreign half-truths.
The State Department, for instance, noted in a carefully worded March 9, 2022, statement that “the United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine.” The State Department proceeded to reject the claim, not that the U.S. and Ukraine were collaborating on biological and chemical research, but that they were “conducting chemical and biological weapons activities.”
“The prior administration bankrolled dangerous gain-of-function research and foreign biolabs with American tax dollars, then deliberately hid it from the American people,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a statement.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, DNI Tulsi Gabbard and the entire Cabinet are righting these historic wrongs and delivering justice for our warfighters and the ones they protect,” Hegseth continued. “The era of lies and betrayal is over.”
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