JAMES LYNCH

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project is suing the CIA for records related to its investigation of COVID-19’s origins, the Daily Caller has learned.

Heritage’s Oversight Project filed a lawsuit Friday against the CIA after the agency did not comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records connected to its team tasked with investigating the lab leak theory, which posits that COVID-19 was created in and escaped from a laboratory rather than being transmitted to humans by animals. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Heritage Foundation Presses FBI On Tactics Used To Fight Records Requests)

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 ____________________________________)HERITAGE FOUNDATION )214 Massachusetts Ave. N.E. )Washington, D.C. 20002 ))MIKE HOWELL )214 Massachusetts Ave. N.E. )Washington, D.C. 20002 ))

 Plaintiffs

, ))v. ) Case No. 23-cv-3810)CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY )Office of General Counsel )Washington, D.C. 20505 ))

 Defendant 

. ) ____________________________________)

COMPLAINT AND PRAYER FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

Plaintiffs THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION and MIKE HOWELL (collectively“Plaintiffs”) for their complaint against Defendant CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY(“CIA”) allege on knowledge as to Plaintiffs, and on information and belief as to all othermatters, as follows:1.

This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552,to compel production of CIA records relating to allegations that members of the CIA’s COVIDDiscovery Team, a group of employees tasked with analyzing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, received monetary incentives to change their position on the origins of the virus.2.

The COVID-19 global pandemic killed over 1.14 million Americans and upended 

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