Vicky Arias, FISM News
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday said the agency believes the COVID-19 outbreak that has, so far, killed over 6.8 million people worldwide “most likely” originated through a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
In an interview with Fox News host, Bret Baier, Wray explained that “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
The FBI has at its disposal “analysts, virologists, [and] microbiologists,” according to Wray, “who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like … COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands … the threats that those could pose.”
“So here you’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans,” Wray continued. “I should add that our work related to this continues, and there are not a whole lot of details I can share that aren’t classified. I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here. The work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everybody.”
ENERGY DEPARTMENT AGREES
Wray’s admission comes just days after the Energy Department on Sunday shifted its stance on the origins of the outbreak from “undecided” to a “low confidence” assessment that the outbreak began after a Wuhan lab leaked the deadly virus.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “the Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.”
WHITE HOUSE DODGES QUESTION
The White House dodged the updated assessment, saying there isn’t a government “consensus” on COVID’s origins.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press that “there is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started.”
A great deal of secrecy has surrounded the outbreak’s origins and continues to beleaguer advancements in looking at future virus threats and mitigation measures.
SENATORS PUSH FOR DECLASSIFICATION
Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) on Monday reintroduced a bill that would require President Joe Biden to reveal classified documents related to the origins of the pandemic.
The legislation, known as the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,” would “require the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID-19.”
Braun, in a press release on Monday, demanded more transparency from the White House, saying “the Biden administration has continued to keep information about COVID’s origins secret.”
“The American people deserve transparency, free from government censors or media spin,” Braun continued. “It’s time to declassify everything we know about COVID’s origins and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now.”