Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wikimedia Commons)

President Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed Tulsi Gabbard as the nation’s top spy chief said on Wednesday that he believed there was more to learn about Beijing’s cover-up of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton acknowledged that the intelligence community has more work to do to assess and possibly release records about COVID. The concealment of the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the virus’ early unchecked spread had worldwide repercussions.

However, many questions remain unanswered, including when the Chinese Communist Party first learned of the outbreak and whether three lab researchers were infected with COVID in the fall of 2019.

Trump nominated Clayton to become director of National Intelligence (DNI), a position that oversees the nation’s 18 spy agencies, on June 11.

The nomination came amid a flurry of opposition from Congress to his temporary pick, acting DNI Bill Pulte.

Clayton would not answer questions Wednesday about why Trump delayed an earlier scheduled confirmation hearing. Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton and other senators sought to quickly consider Clayton’s nomination in an apparent bid to limit Pulte’s time in the role.

“I authored a requirement in last year’s [Intelligence Authorization Act] for ODNI to review intelligence for public release relating to China’s efforts to coverup the COVID pandemic and interfere with our response,” Republican Indiana Sen. Todd Young said. “Do you commit to following the law, ensuring that this review is completed as soon as possible, and ensuring that all appropriate intelligence is released so that the world can better understand China’s bad behavior? Yes or no, please.”

“I have a hard time with yes or no answers, sorry, but what I can say is that I think there is a whole lot more to learn from what happened in COVID, and there is a lot of work — I expect, I hope to know more — to ensure the American people have access to that learning,” Clayton replied.

Gabbard, on her last day in office on June 19, released a tranche of new documents about former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci’s outsized influence on the intelligence community’s reports.

The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported in 2025 on the efforts of Fauci and a clique of handpicked scientists to steer intelligence reports toward a wet market origin over the objections of biological weapons experts at the FBI, the National Medical Intelligence Center and the Department of Energy.

Epstein’s Zorro Ranch

Clayton also fielded questions about convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. Clayton helped to facilitate the public release of Epstein records as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, pressed Clayton on producing records about Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, which was located in his state. Federal law enforcement has never searched that property, Heinrich said.

The senator cited allegations by a former New Mexico attorney general, a Democrat, that a 2019 state investigation into Epstein had been quashed by DOJ higher-ups.

“It is alleged, and I would add quite credibly, that Jeffrey Epstein committed some very serious crimes at his Zorro Ranch property in my home state of New Mexico,” Heinrich said. “Can you commit to providing any relevant information to the New Mexico Attorney General and the unredacted documents that he has requested?”

“I spoke to my team about this last night,” Clayton replied.

The New Mexico Department of Justice on Tuesday accused Clayton’s Southern District and the U.S. Department of Justice of stalling their investigation.

“That request is for unredacted documents,” Clayton continued. “Those documents are subject to several protections, for those redactions, including a protective order of the court. My folks, I think, as we speak, are seeking dialog with the attorney general to see if we can reach an accommodation that is consistent with those protective orders.”

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