The newly released records from Senator Rand Paul’s office allege the FBI intervened to stop Customs and Border Protection from stopping and questioning EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak when he returned from China in 2021, and those documents raise fresh questions about how federal agencies handled the probe into COVID-19’s origins.
The documents describe CBP’s National Targeting Center flagging Daszak as an “extremely high person of interest” because of his long ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and his role in NIH-funded research. According to the files, CBP planned to search his devices and ask targeted questions upon arrival at JFK, but those plans were halted after contact from the FBI. That direct intervention, if accurate, sidestepped CBP’s normal border duties and blocked an opportunity for immediate answers.
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/2079313712448475250
Embedded materials released alongside the documents show the committee’s post announcing the revelations and the specific passages that led to concern about an administrative cover-up. The post draws attention to an email dated 2/4/2021 in which a CBP official states, “Please be advised that FBI New York has requested we do not stop the subject below.” That line is simple and damning in its clarity; it says an FBI request stopped an intended CBP action at the border.
BREAKING: @SenRandPaul, the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has just released internal federal documents which he says show that the FBI intervened and stopped CBP from searching and questioning Peter Daszak upon his return to the US from China at JFK airport in 2021 during the WHO’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documents show that CBP’s National Targeting Center had flagged Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, as an “extremely high person of interest” ahead of his arrival in the US, citing his more than 15 years of collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and his role as principal investigator on NIH grants funding bat coronavirus research in China, and that “much of the funding DASZAK receives is put towards gain of function research.”
The documents reveal that CBP had a series of questions they planned to ask Daszak when he landed and were going to search his media, until they were told to stand down by the FBI.
In an email dated 2/4/2021, a CBP official notifies others within CBP:
“Please be advised that FBI New York has requested we do not stop the subject below.”
Chairman Paul says as a result, the stop, search, and questioning of Daszak never happened.
This is not a small procedural quibble. CBP exists to secure the border, enforce customs law, and counter threats entering the country, including potential biological threats. When an individual tied to foreign research programs arrives from the epicenter of a global outbreak, standard protocol would reasonably include scrutiny, device searches, and questions about movements and contacts. Skipping that step begs the question: who called the shot, and why?
Senator Paul’s release comes amid a long list of unsettled issues about the early pandemic response, including what U.S. funding supported in Wuhan and whether experts with conflicts helped shape the official line on origins. From a Republican perspective, the pattern looks like institutional defensiveness, not transparency, and it feeds existing distrust about how the Biden-era federal bureaucracy treated critical investigative leads. Lawmakers demanding answers now have new documentary fuel for oversight and subpoenas.
The files also emphasize Daszak’s role as a principal investigator on NIH grants and his collaboration with Wuhan researchers, an association critics say should have prompted far more rigorous vetting. CBP noted “more than 15 years” of cooperation and flagged funding that allegedly supported gain-of-function work, a phrase that still triggers alarms about risk and oversight. Those specifics matter because they focus the inquiry on real funding lines and real collaborations, not abstract accusations.
Republican critics argue the whole affair smells like improper influence or a prioritization of institutional relationships over national security. If an FBI instruction effectively overruled CBP’s on-the-ground judgment without transparent justification, it sets a dangerous precedent for how executive agencies coordinate sensitive probes. At a minimum, it demands clear answers about who authorized the stand-down and what rationale was offered for protecting a person of interest from inspection.
The release of these records should prompt congressional investigators to press for full context, including any communications between the FBI, State Department, WHO, and other entities that discussed Daszak’s travel and cooperation. For voters and policymakers seeking accountability, the central concern is simple: federal agencies must not be allowed to short-circuit investigations that could reveal how a pandemic began. The integrity of the process matters for national security and public trust.
Readers can find the documents assembled and released by Senator Paul attached to the committee’s materials; they form the raw evidence that drives these questions and frame the next phase of oversight.
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