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A new assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the origins of the pandemic that has killed millions has concluded that Covid-19 may have escaped from a laboratory in China.
The U.S. intelligence agency said it concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 virus leaked from a research facility, reversing its previous position that there was insufficient information to draw a conclusion.
“Based on available reports, the CIA assesses that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin,” the agency said in a statement on Saturday.
“The CIA continues to assess that research-related scenarios and natural origin scenarios for the COVID-19 pandemic remain reasonable.”
The 18-agency U.S. intelligence community has spent the past four years assessing the origins of Covid-19 to determine whether the virus emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the Chinese city .
The CIA, along with the FBI and the Energy Department, concluded that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory. But it said it had “low confidence in this judgment” and would “continue to evaluate any credible new intelligence reports or open source information that become available,” which could change its assessment.
The new assessment comes just days after John Ratcliffe was sworn in as CIA director.
In an interview with Breitbart News after being confirmed as President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the intelligence agency, Ratcliffe said he believed intelligence and common sense “suggested the origin of the coronavirus was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” and will ensure that “the public knows that the agency [CIA] will leave the sidelines”.
U.S. officials said Bill Burns, the CIA director during the Biden administration, told a CIA team assessing evidence to take a stance on the origins of Covid-19 but did not decide the outcome.
Burns’ directive comes as national security adviser Jake Sullivan orders the intelligence community to reexamine the origins of the pandemic as the Biden team prepares to leave office.
The U.S. official emphasized that the CIA had revised its assessment before Ratcliffe was sworn in as the new director.
“I have said from the beginning that the coronavirus likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory. Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that communist China covered it up and the liberal media reported on it.
“I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab leak theory is the most plausible explanation for the origins of COVID-19, and I commend Director Ratcliffe for following through on his commitment to release this conclusion. The most important thing now is to make China pay the price for bringing this plague to the world.
The Chinese Embassy in the United States did not respond to a request for comment.
The CIA’s new change in assessment comes more than a week after Trump’s first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since at least 2021. Take a tough stance, especially on trade issues.
Trump told Fox News this week that while tariffs give him “tremendous power” over China, he “would rather not have to use it.”
He also signed an executive order delaying a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owners to divest the popular video app to avoid a U.S. ban.
