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FBI Director Kash Patel revealed to the eponymous host of “The Joe Rogan Experience” in the episode published Friday that the bureau “just had a great breakthrough” regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a matter into which the FBI apparently has multiple ongoing investigations.

The FBI director noted that this “breakthrough” specifically has to do with Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases whom the White House has accused of helping cover up the likely lab origins of COVID-19 and whose name Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and congressional investigators recently batted around when discussing lies about gain-of-function research.

Patel noted that the FBI long sought the phones and devices Fauci used while he was serving in the first Trump administration during the pandemic, “and nobody had found it — till two days ago.”

While the director cautioned Rogan and his audience from jumping “to the conclusion [that] everything’s in there,” he said the bureau will “look at it, we’ll pull it — we’ll rip it, as we say.”

Patel intimated that where potentially incriminating material is concerned, “maybe it’s deleted, maybe it’s not, but at least we found it.”

When asked about the potential significance of the discovery of such devices and what investigators should look for, molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University, a leading critic of Fauci’s flirtations with gain-of-function research, told Blaze News, “Fauci violated federal policies on gain-of-function and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research, committed conspiracy to defraud and perjury, used federal funds to commit crimes, and caused and covered up the cause of a pandemic that killed 20 million and cost $25 trillion.”

The World Health Organization claims that there have been cumulatively over 7 million reported COVID-19 deaths. However, the Economist’s machine-learning model estimated that the total number of excess deaths globally is two to four times higher than the reported number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, which could the put deaths far in excess of 20 million souls.

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Ebright was among the prominent scientists who last year sought accountability over efforts to cure the origin narrative and demanded the retraction of “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published by Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020 — a consequential paper that Fauci not only allegedly commissioned and approved but used on multiple occasions to push the zoonotic origin theory.

“If files relevant to Fauci’s roles in causing COVID and covering up the cause of COVID are recoverable from Fauci’s phones or devices, those files could be of value in documenting the cause and the cover-up and in prosecuting persons culpable for the cause and the cover-up,” Ebright told Blaze News. “Examples of relevant files would include files documenting Fauci’s correspondence with scientists whose research caused COVID, correspondence with scientists, science administrators, and other federal agency officials who helped Fauci cover up the cause of COVID, and correspondence documenting Fauci’s use of non-government email accounts and phone lines for government business.”

The FBI told Blaze News it had no further comment beyond what Director Patel said on the podcast.

‘Clearly he was being deceptive.’

Rogan asked Patel whether the pardons doled out in former President Joe Biden’s name would spare Fauci from accountability over his misleading claim to Congress that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

There is, after all, a great deal of interest in Congress in holding Fauci accountable over his apparent lie to Congress in 2021 that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research.

For instance, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Matt Kibbe, the host of BlazeTV’s docuseries “The Coverup,” that he had referred Fauci to the Department of Justice for prosecution three times over his statements.

“We’ve detailed his lies to Congress, which are a felony. I’ve sort of tragically and jokingly said, ‘If he were a member of the Trump administration, he would have been arrested long ago.’ Because I think we have two standards of justice,” Paul told Kibbe. “He certainly seems to be protected.”

“Clearly he was being deceptive,” Rogan said to Patel. “Are they pardoned for that as well? ‘Cause it was like this crazy blanket pardon from 2014 forward, which I didn’t even know you could do.”

On Jan. 20, Fauci received a “full and unconditional” pre-emptive pardon for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — around the time the Obama administration supposedly halted funding for dangerous gain-of-function research.

“So I’m the investigator. So that would be a decision for the Department of Justice,” said Patel. “We’ll work it up and we’ll say, ‘This is what we found,’ and then legal minds will have to come in and chop on, ‘Does this pardon apply or not?'”

While Fauci may presently enjoy an immunity shield from prosecution on account of his last-minute pardon, that pardon now faces a great deal of scrutiny.

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President Donald Trump declared in March that the pardons were “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”

DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin announced last month that he is reviewing the questionable “autopen” pardons issued in the final days of the Biden White House, noting that they “need some scrutiny.” The House Oversight Committee is also investigating autopen use in the Biden White House.

Even if Fauci’s pardon holds up, information gleaned by the FBI from the alleged devices could possibly be used in legal actions taken at the state level.

In February, over 16 state attorneys general launched an investigation into Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic response, “demanding accountability for alleged mismanagement, misleading statements, and suppression of scientific debate.”

The state AGs underscored in their letter to Congress that the “pardon by former President Biden does not extend to preclude state-level investigations or legal proceedings.”

Editor’s note: The article has been edited after publication to incorporate the FBI’s response to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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