Senator Rand Paul has released internal Slack messages that appear to show researchers behind a prominent scientific paper on COVID-19's origins privately expressed doubts about their public conclusions, even as the paper publicly downplayed the possibility the virus emerged from a laboratory. The disclosure adds to long-running Republican-led scrutiny of how key scientists and federal agencies handled the pandemic's origins, and comes alongside separate documents suggesting the FBI blocked Customs and Border Protection from questioning EcoHealth Alliance's former president, Peter Daszak, a researcher tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and gain-of-function research.

Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, and other GOP lawmakers have used the newly surfaced messages and documents to accuse the Biden administration of obstructing efforts to fully investigate COVID-19's origins. The materials centre on communications among authors of an influential origins paper, whose private discussions reportedly diverged from the certainty conveyed in their published findings, while the FBI's alleged intervention regarding Daszak is being cited as further evidence of institutional resistance to scrutiny.