CIA Reports COVID Likely Leaked From Lab, as Trump Prepares to Shut Down Gain-of-Function Research
The CIA believes the most plausible source of the COVID-19 virus was a lab in Wuhan, China, according to a report released Saturday.
The CIA believes the most plausible source of the COVID-19 virus was a lab in Wuhan, China, according to a report released Saturday.
The CIA investigated the possible origins of the virus at the request of the Biden administration. However, the administration declined to make the CIA’s assessment public, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
On his first day as the CIA director for the incoming Trump administration, John Ratcliffe ordered the report be declassified and released, according to The Associated Press.
Ratcliffe told Fox News on Sunday, “It was important for the American public to see an institution like the CIA get off the sidelines and be truthful about what our intelligence shows.”
Ratcliffe said the CIA “has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan, so we’ll continue to investigate that moving forward.’’
While the totality of evidence points toward a lab leak, a CIA spokesperson told Fox News, “We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”
Multiple government agencies say evidence supports lab-leak theory
The CIA is far from alone in asserting that COVID-19 most likely came from a lab.
In February 2023, a U.S. Department of Energy report concluded COVID-19 emerged as a result of a lab leak. Within a week, the FBI reached the same conclusion.
In April 2023, a U.S. Senate report also concluded that COVID-19 likely emerged from a Wuhan lab.
In December 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic said in its final report that the COVID-19 pandemic “most likely” resulted from gain-of-function research conducted at a lab in Wuhan.
The congressional investigators listed five of the strongest arguments in favor of the lab leak theory:
The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.
Data show that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.
Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.
Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market.
By nearly all measures of science, if there were evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), who served on the subcommittee, praised Ratcliffe’s release of the CIA report in an X post.
The CIA declined to share its report with The Defender or comment by the deadline.
Trump prepares executive order to halt gain-of-function research
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is drafting an executive order to halt federal funding, at least temporarily, for risky gain-of-function research, the WSJ reported.
The executive order’s details have yet to be finalized. However, people familiar with the plan told the WSJ the order’s goal would be to stop scientists with U.S. funding from conducting gain-of-function research on viruses that could endanger human health.
Gain-of-function research involves studying ways to make pathogens more dangerous or contagious.
The U.S. government was funding gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s nominee for leading the National Institutes of Health, has expressed support for pausing gain-of-function research.
Related articles in The Defender:
The CIA is trying to divert and cover up it came from the CiA. From Ralph Baric for DARPA at UniNC. When DARPA said no to FauXi-Gates boondoggle sending SARS2 bioweapons to Wuhan to splice to bat corona viruses so they could sell “vaccines” and make money off Royalties on Forced Gain of Function patents. The CIA via USAID, EcoHealth Alliance and NIH did it anyway. As the Biden Crime family funded the US-Pharma bioweapons labs Obama funded as a Senator in Ukraine. But starting in 2014, openly funding Corona Virus Disease forced gain of function resesrch. Co Vi D research before we even knew what Covid was. On Hunter’s lap top emails.
I thank God for President Trump. For such a "rich, happy life, well off man.....who certainly doesn't need us.....he has to be such a good soul to put up with and do for us.....everything he has gone thru to save the United States from communist dictatorship.