By Joe Murphy at Brownstone dot org.

The reader who follows the unraveling of the Covid-19 origins coverup may be aware that I observed the DEFUSE proposal while a military fellow at DARPA and reported it to investigating authorities. Time and FOIA records have publicly revealed why the DEFUSE documents were placed where I observed them. Time and FOIA records, however, have not revealed why DEFUSE went unreported to investigators before I did so in 2021.

DEFUSE, Defusing the Threat of Bat-borne Coronaviruses, was an EcoHealth Alliance submission to DARPA's Preventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT) program call for proposals. DEFUSE involved American, foreign, and Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists proposing to modify the spike proteins of SARS-related coronaviruses in order to model the probability of disease jump to and spread amongst US Pacific forces. In between was high-risk, arguably gain-of-function dual-use research of concern related to vaccine vector and dispersal development. The exactness of the proposed research to SARS-CoV-2's features makes DEFUSE a leading hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2's origin.

DEFUSE was pitched to DARPA in March 2018. Fifteen government agencies saw the proposal in the winter 2018 timeframe. DARPA did not select, though features of the proposal mirror features of future NIH grants. Most importantly, no one who knew of DEFUSE mentioned DEFUSE to authorities or to the public once the pandemic began. DEFUSE was ultimately publicized by DRASTIC, whom I shared it with, in September 2021. With publication, the question emerged as to why the DEFUSE files remained unreported since SARS-CoV-2 emerged, which was one of my questions in my memo to the DOD Office of the Inspector General (DODOIG) (a memo later leaked to Project Veritas).

I FOIA'd the DODOIG for records associated with my case (after being told by Senate staff that the investigation was complete). Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) publicized previous records in November 2024 in his demand that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) investigate the origins coverup within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Intelligence Community (IC). These records reveal that DARPA staff uploaded DEFUSE to the top-secret network in response to an IC call for information. They also reveal that 1) no one who knew of DEFUSE reported its existence since the time SARS-CoV-2 emerged – about 1.5 years and 2) the DODOIG investigating officer did not investigate why no one who knew of DEFUSE reported its existence for 1.5 years.

I recently received the last of the records FOIA'd from DOD. [The latest FOIA records publicly confirm the July 2021 call for information was specific to DEFUSE.]. DODOIG pushed part of the investigation to Defense Health Agency (DHA), but DHA declined to investigate. The rationale is redacted. It's also unclear why it took multiple years to receive the one-page email that says this.

I will credit DODOIG for pushing an investigation request to DHA. In doing so, there was an implied acknowledgment to my point that the biology of SARS-CoV-2 needed to be reassessed in lieu of the DEFUSE research. Despite public demand to do so, there has still been no assessment in this vein and it remains unclear if the FBI and IC investigations will do so, though the possible engineering in the spike protein and its purpose is the heart of the matter for the illness and for the vaccine injuries.

DODOIG's records include the interview summaries that were part of the investigating officer's report (not included in the prior records distribution). The content is bland but there are comments and there are omissions that are the purpose of this essay. These reveal further moral failure tied to withholding the DEFUSE information that contributed to the underinformed and fouled SARS-CoV-2 response, a debacle instigated by the cover-up of SARS-CoV-2's origin. Fundamentally, the question remains as to why the DEFUSE proposal ...