Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have written letters to President Biden and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines demanding information on the origin of COVID-19, claiming they’d found evidence to support the theory that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab.
The letter accuses the intelligence community of failing to provide timely updates on its investigation and not being “forthcoming” about “what processes it undertook to make seemingly authoritative statements early in the pandemic about the origins of the virus — conclusions that are now in question.
“This casts doubt on the validity of early judgments as well as the analytic integrity of COVID-19-related intelligence reporting,” the letter addressed to Haines states.
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“Republican Members are aware of allegations that the IC suppressed dissenting views related to the origins of the pandemic and that the community relied upon ‘outside’ experts with concerning yet undisclosed entanglements,” the letter, signed by Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asserts.
The letter demands that the intelligence community turn over all of its information on COVID-19’s origins, specifically requesting any reporting on a possible “collaboration” between the Wuhan lab and the Chinese military. It asked for any evidence intelligence agencies had to prove coronavirus broke out naturally and originated in animals.
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It also asked if the intelligence community was involved in any reviews of “gain of function” research, specifically whether it was appropriate to fund such research outside the U.S.
The letter sets a deadline of May 31 to begin providing information for its request.
While U.S. officials during the Trump administration believed the virus may have originated from the lab, some experts have doubted that explanation. But so far, investigations have been hampered by a secretive Chinese regime.
The World Health Organization sent a team to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak earlier this year, but even the Biden administration – which has been less hawkish on the WHO and China than the prior administration – has expressed concern about Chinese interference.
“We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a lengthy statement. “It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government.”
In a separate letter to Biden, the Republican lawmakers said that a senior administration official had confirmed their finding that the origin of COVID-19 could have been the result of a lab leak.
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“In April, the Director of National Intelligence explained that either ‘[COVID-19] emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals or it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan,'” the letter reads. “It is unclear, however, if the Intelligence Community or any other part of the U.S. government is seeking to determine the truth.”
