CIA believes COVID-19 was likely caused by Lab leak

The CIA currently holds the belief that COVID-19 which is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory according to an assessment released on Saturday.

This assessment points the finger at China; however, it also acknowledges that the spy agency possesses “low confidence” in its own conclusion.

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This finding is not the result of any new intelligence because the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA director William Burns.

It was declassified and released on Saturday, due to the orders of president Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe who was sworn in as director on Thursday.

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Ratcliffe, who previously served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s initial term, has long favoured the lab leak theory, asserting that Covid most likely arose from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The institute is merely a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market, where the initial cluster of infections emerged.

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In an interview with Breitbart News, published on Friday, Ratcliffe expressed his desire for the CIA to abandon its neutral stance on the virus’s origins and “get off the sidelines,” because the truth must prevail, although it may be uncomfortable.

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“One of the things that I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of COVID,” he said.

“That’s a day-one thing for me.”

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However, officials informed US media that the recent assessment was not grounded in fresh intelligence (it actually predates the Trump administration).

The review, reportedly commissioned during the final weeks of the Biden administration, was finalized before Trump assumed office on Monday.