Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The CIA has changed its assessment of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, now favoring a laboratory leak theory. Under the leadership of a new director John Ratcliffeagency has released an assessment of the origins of COVID-19.
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, toward the end of Biden’s tenure.
Analysts made the “low confidence” assessment, despite former CIA Director Bill Burns, who has remained agnostic about the origin, telling the agency to take another look at existing evidence and take sides.
Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus visited the institute in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province, on February 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
JOHN RATCLIFFE SAYS CONFIRMATION HEARING US IS FACED WITH ‘MOST COMPLEX SECURITY ENVIRONMENT’
The agency has argued for years that it didn’t have enough reasonable information to make a conclusion COVID has arisen in a laboratory or wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment in favor of a leak from the lab, there was no sign of new evidence.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin, based on the available body of reports. The CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural scenarios for the origin of the COVID-19 19 pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
“We do not trust this opinion and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reports or information from open sources that may change the CIA’s assessment.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed Thursday, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of the origin of COVID as part of a broader strategy to “reverse the threat from China.”
He also said he wanted the CIA to “step aside” and take a stand.
John Ratcliffe appears at a Senate intelligence confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 15, 2025. in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
WHO RENEWS CALLS FOR CHINA TO SHARE DATA ON ORIGIN OF COVID AFTER 5 YEARS
In a March 2023 In a Fox News op-ed co-authored by Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to silence the growing consensus around the lab leak theory by glossing over “what can be accurately assessed based on the intelligence that they have.”
He also questioned the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to conclude on the origin of the virus.
“The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is second to none, its ability to extract information is second to none. And yet here, three and a half years later, there are a lot of public reports that the CIA just doesn’t have enough information on.” , to make an assessment, this is complete nonsense,” says the material from March 2023.
A sign with information about COVID-19 testing is posted near a COVID-19 testing station as a pedestrian collects test tubes in Wheeling, Illinois, on December 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM
In the same article, Ratcliffe and Sims rejected the idea that the virus had arisen naturally, stating that there was “a complete lack of intelligence or scientific evidence” to support this conclusion.
When he testified before a House subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic in April 2023, Ratcliffe said the lab leak theory was “the only explanation that is reliably supported by our intelligence, science and common sense.”
