"Only the Tip of the Iceberg" - Senator Ron Johnson Exposes the COVID Cover-Up in Landmark Senate Hearing
Senator Ron Johnson—a relentless truth-seeker and unwavering advocate for transparency—delivered a powerful opening statement during a Senate hearing held on May 21, 2025, titled “The Corruption of Science and Federal Health Agencies: How Health Officials Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines.”
Now in his third term, Johnson has spent years demanding answers that others were too afraid to ask. A true Canary, he has stood by the injured, challenged censorship, and exposed corruption within America’s public health institutions—often at great personal and political cost. With his new role as Chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he is finally in a position to hold those responsible to account. As Senator Johnson himself said, this is “only the tip of the iceberg.”
We are proud to have featured his voice in Chapter 14 of Canary in a Covid World: How Propaganda and Censorship Changed Our (My) World. In that chapter, titled Pandemic Politics and America’s COVID Cartel, he laid bare the political suppression of dissenting science during the pandemic’s early years.
Given the significance of this moment and the years of work that led to it, we felt it was important to publish his full statement here on the Canary Substack. It is essential reading for anyone seeking truth in a time of institutional betrayal.
Below is the official statement, as submitted for the record, and here is a video of his opening statement:
Opening Statement of Chairman Ron Johnson
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
May 21, 2025
As submitted to the record:
I would like to welcome Ranking Member Blumenthal and all the members, new and old, to this, the first hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the 119th Congress. I look forward to working with all of you as we conduct oversight and investigations to uncover and expose the truth on issues that are important to the American people.
My hope is that our work will be largely non-partisan—there should be nothing partisan about revealing the truth. That was this Subcommittee’s experience in the last Congress, as we conducted bipartisan investigations into the assassination attempts on President Trump and the Coast Guard’s cover-up of sexual abuse, and attempted to obtain information the government withheld from the 9/11 families.
In addition to the Subcommittee’s bipartisan record, its reputation for conducting thorough investigations spans decades. Since the 1940s, this Subcommittee has been the epicenter of major Congressional oversight efforts. I hope to use this Subcommittee to build on that legacy by bringing much-needed transparency to the public, revealing the truth, and exposing wrongdoing. But it won’t be easy. Wrongdoers are very good at covering their tracks, and we are aware of allegations suggesting document destruction and purposeful evasion of FOIA.
Hearing Title:
“The Corruption of Science and Federal Health Agencies: How Health Officials Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines.”
As chairman of the full committee, I held multiple hearings in the first year of the pandemic that opened my eyes to the capture and corruption of federal health agencies and scientific research. So much of our miserably failed response to COVID made no sense: masking, devastating shutdowns, the sabotage of early treatment, rapid approval of Remdesivir, and the maniacal reliance on the COVID-19 injections as the only way to end the pandemic.
As ranking member of this subcommittee, I was unable to interest the Subcommittee or full Committee Chairs in joining my oversight of our pandemic response. So instead of formal hearings, I held public events giving those injured by the COVID-19 injection a platform to appeal to federal health officials and the public for help. I also provided opportunities for eminently qualified doctors and medical researchers who disagreed with our pandemic response to offer second opinions. More often than not, those who spoke up were vilified, censored, and suffered various forms of retaliation.
Fortunately, the retaliation did not deter them and they continued to speak out. Even better, they were joined by others. Some of those individuals are testifying today or are in the audience. I want to personally thank them for their courage and persistence.
Interim Report Release
Today, I am releasing an interim report based in large part on documents obtained by individuals who filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests over the last several years. These documents, despite heavy redactions applied by the Biden administration, raised public awareness of the administration’s failure to immediately warn the public about myocarditis and other adverse events linked to the COVID-19 injections.
I want to credit the tenacious reporting of Brenda Baletti, Ed Berkovich, Brian Hooker, Amy Kelly, Zachary Stieber, and Naomi Wolf. I also want to thank React19, the Informed Consent Action Network, The Pfizer Papers, Epoch Times, The Defender, Just the News, Daily Clout, and others who worked persistently to expose the truth.
Over the last four years, under the Biden administration, federal health officials withheld information from the public regarding the government’s pandemic response and the safety of the COVID-19 injections. I sent over 70 oversight letters, most of which were either ignored or inadequately addressed. These included requests for data on adverse events, surveillance analyses, and communications about health risks.
Why the secrecy?
If the COVID-19 injections were truly as safe and effective as claimed, what was there to hide?
The records we’ve obtained offer a troubling answer:
Biden administration officials knew as early as 2021 that mRNA COVID-19 injections could cause adverse health events and chose to downplay the risks—violating the core principle of informed consent.
Key Revelations From the Interim Report:
Feb 28, 2021: Israeli Ministry of Health notifies CDC of “large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people” after Pfizer injections.
Apr 12, 2021: DoD consultant warns that CDC’s V-safe system wasn’t detecting cardiac events: “If you do not ask, you will not see it.”
Mid-April 2021: CDC acknowledges myocarditis signals but delays public warnings.
May 17–21, 2021: CDC staff discuss issuing a Health Alert Network (HAN) message but are concerned doctors aren’t reporting cases.
May 24, 2021: FDA/CDC officials confirm myocarditis safety signal.
May 25, 2021: White House distributes talking points downplaying risk of myocarditis to Fauci and others.
May 25–27, 2021: CDC keeps Pfizer and Moderna more informed than the public.
May 26–28, 2021: Formal HAN alert is “nixed” in favor of vague “clinical considerations.”
Late June 2021: FDA adds warning to vaccine labels—but only after months of delay.
Instead of urgently informing doctors and the public through a HAN—the CDC’s “primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents”—officials chose optics over safety.
They were more focused on combating vaccine hesitancy and mandating compliance than protecting public health.
They weren’t finding what they weren’t looking for—and didn’t want us to know what they knew.
Closing
Today’s hearing and interim report won’t undo the damage. But they mark a turning point in transparency. The public finally has access to long-hidden documents that reveal just how much was concealed.
Many of today’s witnesses are medical professionals who’ve treated vaccine-injured patients. Their testimony raises a difficult but necessary question:
How many lives could have been saved if this information had been shared in early 2021?
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will continue its oversight, determined to uncover the truth and return government transparency to the American people.
I thank today’s witnesses for their testimony and courage.
Thank you for sharing. Some of us knew early on that something was terribly wrong. So many red flags off the get go. Sure thankful my gut instincts told me to not get the toxic vaccine
Ron Johnson is a hero for relentlessly pursuing and proving the truth. God bless him.