Useful information
Prime News delivers timely, accurate news and insights on global events, politics, business, and technology
Unlock the White House Watch Newsletter for Free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The CIA has concluded that Covid-19 likely began as a leak from a laboratory in China in a new assessment of the origins of the pandemic that killed millions of people.
The US Intelligence Agency said it concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 virus had leaked from the research facility, in a change from its previous position that there was insufficient information to reach a conclusion.
“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 body of available reports,” the agency said in a statement on Saturday.
“The CIA continues to assess that research-related natural origin and Covid-19 pandemic origin scenarios remain plausible.”
The US intelligence community, which is made up of 18 agencies, has been assessing the origin of Covid-19 for the past four years to determine whether the virus emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan or whether it leaked from the Institute of Wuhan Virology. in the Chinese city.
The CIA joins the FBI and Energy Department in concluding that the virus originated in the Wuhan laboratory. But he said he had “little confidence in this judgment” and would “continue to evaluate any new available credible intelligence reports or open source information” that might change his assessment.
The new assessment was made public just days after John Ratcliffe was sworn in as CIA director.
In an interview with Breitbart News after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence agency, Ratcliffe said he believed intelligence and common sense “dictate that the origins of Covid were a leak at the Institute of Wuhan Virology” and would make sure that “the public is aware that the Agency (CIA) is going to go off the rails.”
A US official said Bill Burns, CIA chief during the Biden administration, had told the CIA team evaluating the evidence to take a position on the origin of Covid-19, but they did not dictate the outcome.
Burns’ directive came as Jake Sullivan, who served as national security adviser, ordered the intelligence community to take another look at the origins of the pandemic as Biden’s team prepared to leave office.
The US 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 Covid probably originated in Wuhan Labs. Communist China covered it and the liberal media covered it for them,” said Tom Cotton, Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab can theory is the most plausible explanation for the origins of Covid, and I congratulate Director Ratcliffe for following through on his promise to release this conclusion. Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world.”
The Chinese embassy in the United States did not respond to a request for comment.
The CIA’s new assessment change comes just over a week after Trump held his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since at least 2021. While many foreign policy experts expected Trump to take a tough line on China, particularly on trade, in his first week in office, the president has so far withheld tough measures against Beijing.
In an interview with Fox News this week, Trump said that while the tariffs gave him “tremendous power” over China, he would “rather not have to use it.”
He also signed an executive order postponing the deadline for Tiktok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video app to avoid a ban in the United States.
