A report in the Wall Street Journal revealed that there are sharp divisions among US intelligence agencies over whether the Covid-19 virus (Corona) arose as a result of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, or arose naturally, and evidence indicates that some analyzes supporting the theory that The virus leaked from the laboratory.
According to the report, there was a clear division between intelligence agencies before the report submitted to President Joe Biden in August 2021 about the source of the virus, as the FBI supported the laboratory leak theory, while other agencies suggested that the virus originated in nature.
According to the report, these disagreements caused the FBI to be excluded from the intelligence meeting before the president, when the National Intelligence Council and four other intelligence agencies suggested “with a weak degree of confidence” that the virus originated from an animal and not from a laboratory leak.
The FBI believed with “moderate confidence” the laboratory leak theory, and the FBI’s exclusion from the hearing raised some doubts.
The agencies’ report came in the wake of Biden’s order in May 2021 to conduct an investigation into the origins of the virus within 90 days, after China refused to cooperate with the United States in the investigation, and in the months leading up to the day of the meeting, the agencies disagreed strongly among themselves about which theory was most likely. .
Jason Bannan, a former FBI microbiologist and one of those who studied the virus, told the newspaper in an exclusive interview that the FBI was not called on the day of the meeting to present its findings, and that he waited for the car that was scheduled to take him to the White House all that morning. today.
Hiding the facts
He added: “Because the FBI is the only agency that concluded that the source of the epidemic was most likely the laboratory, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the epidemic, we expected that the FBI would be asked to attend the meeting, and I find it strange that the White House He didn’t ask for it.”
What made matters more complicated, according to the report, were the findings of 3 scientists at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which confirmed that Covid-19 was engineered in a laboratory, and they based their analysis on the research of the Wuhan Institute, but these results were withheld from the final report.
The sources indicate that officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency prevented the scientists in June 2021 from sharing their research with the FBI, and they were also told that the FBI was “out of scope of work on this case,” and this led to an investigation by the Inspector General. to the agency, but without any consequences yet.
Political obstacles
In the opinion of the report’s authors, Michael Gordon, the newspaper’s national security correspondent, and Warren Strobel, intelligence and security correspondent, these instructions indicate a general tendency within some intelligence agencies to ignore or exclude evidence that might support the laboratory leak theory, as it was not deliberately included in the official reports that were submitted. to the White House, suggesting that the differences between the agencies are political rather than scientific.
The pace of investigation into the matter slowed as intelligence agencies shifted focus to other priorities, and while the National Intelligence Council report failed to resolve the matter, the FBI, in cooperation with the Department of Energy, later concluded that a virus leak from the laboratory was the most likely theory, according to the report.
The report concluded by emphasizing the importance of reopening the investigation file into the origin of the virus, especially after 5 years of the pandemic, and using the existing information and evidence to the fullest extent to reach the truth.