WASHINGTON, September 15 — The nonprofit investigative group U.S. Right to Know published a fresh tranche of Freedom of Information documents on September 10 concerning the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the risks of gain-of-function research and the safety of biosafety laboratories, adding another layer to a public record the group has been assembling since the summer of 2020. The release, reported by USRTK journalist Lewis Kamb, is the latest in a long-running documentary campaign.
Under the hood, it is a records-request operation on an industrial scale: the organisation says it has filed 298 state, federal and international public records requests and 46 FOI lawsuits, and that as of September 1 it has obtained and published more than 280,000 pages of public records on these subjects.
What landed in the latest batch
The September 10 posting includes ODNI batch #8, running to 80 pages, and DOE batch #6, at 1,202 pages, both dated 9.10.26. A further FBI batch #5, of 14 pages, carries a 9.9.26 date. The documents are listed in roughly the chronological order in which they were received.
Other recent releases in the same run include State Department batch #104, 18 pages dated 9.1.26, and DOE batch #5, 20 pages dated 9.2.26. The full list spans several federal agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department — which is, as ever, the detail that matters: the paper trail crosses the intelligence community, the energy department’s national laboratories and the bureau, not a single custodian.
A paper trail built batch by batch
The earlier ODNI batches stretch back through #7, 22 pages dated 6.18.26; #6, four pages on 4.9.26; #5, eight pages on 3.12.26; #4, 21 pages on 4.22.25; #3, a single page on 1.30.25; and #2 and #1, both 22 and 33 pages respectively, dated 6.26.24. DOE’s earlier releases include #4 at 186 pages on 2.16.26, #3 at 343 pages on 1.13.26, #2 at 23 pages on 11.19.25 and #1 at 30 pages on 2.13.24.
The FBI’s earlier batches are #4, 17 pages on 3.6.26; #3, 21 pages on 7.9.25; and #2 and #1, two and six pages, both dated 3.6.25. The State Department’s output dwarfs the rest.
Batch #103, 14 pages, is dated 5.6.26; #102, 13 pages, and #101, 232 pages, #100, 54 pages, #99, 175 pages, #98, 11 pages, #97, 25 pages and #96, 118 pages all carry a 3.26.26 date.
Before that came #95 and #94 on 10.2.25, #93 on 9.12.25, #92 at 208 pages on 8.24.25, #91 on 8.13.25, #90 on 7.9.25, #89 on 5.28.25, #88 at 383 pages on 5.22.25, #87 and #86 — 103 and 102 pages, parts two and one — on 5.21.25, #85 at 431 pages on 5.13.25, #84 on 5.9.25, #83 and #82 on 5.1.25, #81 on 4.15.25, #80 and #79 on 3.11.25, #78 on 2.5.25, #77 on 1.30.25, #76 at 146 pages on 1.24.25, and #75, #74 and #73 — 1,091, 444 and 405 pages — all dated 12.19.24.
Why the group is asking
USRTK says it began submitting public records requests in July 2020, aiming to establish what public institutions knew about the origins of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease Covid-19. It also researches accidents, leaks and other mishaps at laboratories where pathogens of pandemic potential are stored and modified, and the risks of gain-of-function research — which it describes as experiments on such pathogens to increase their host range, infectivity, transmissibility or pathogenicity.
The technical reality is that these are not exotic categories of document. They are institutional correspondence, laboratory records and agency deliberations, released in uneven batches under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 licence that permits free republication with attribution. USRTK
