CIA releases new analysis of covid origin that favors lab leak -theory

The CIA has changed its assessment of the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, which now favors the lab leak theory. Under his new director, John Ratcliffe, the Agency released an assessment of the origin of Covid-19.

The review was ordered by former President Joe Bid’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan towards the end of the bite’s time in office.

Analysts made the assessment of “low self -confidence” despite former CIA director Bill Burns, who remained agnostic on the origin and told the agency that it was necessary to look at the existing proof again and come down on one or the other.

Security staff are watching outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, as members of the World Health Organization Team, which examines the origin of the Covid-19 Coronavirus, visited the institute in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei Province on February 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

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The agency has maintained for years that it did not have enough intelligence to conclude whether Covid originated from a laboratory or wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment that favored a laboratory leak, there was no indication of new evidence.

“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 available reporting body. The CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios for the covid- 19 Pandemi remains plausible, ”a CIA spokesman 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 may change the CIA’s assessment.”

Ratcliffe, confirmed on Thursday, has long been a spokesman for the Lab Leaking theory. In an interview with Breitart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of Covid’s origin as part of a wider strategy “by tackling the threat from China.”

He also said he wants the CIA to “go off the sidelines” and take a stand.

John RatCliffe appears for a Senate Intelligence Convention Hearing at Capitol Hill 15 January 2025, in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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In a March 2023 Fox News Piece written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep a growing consensus around the laboratory theory quietly by suppressing “what can clearly be assessed from the intelligence they possess. ”

He also raised doubts about the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about the virus’s origin.

“The CIA is the world’s leading espion agency. It’s unmatched, its ability to acquire information unmatched. And yet here we are three and a half years later, and there is plenty of public reporting that the CIA just doesn’t have enough information to make a assessment.

A sign of Covid-19 testing appears outside a Covid-19 test site as a health hiker collects test tubes in Wheeling, ill. December 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

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In the same piece, Ratcliffe and Sims rejected the idea that the virus appeared naturally and claimed that there was “a complete absence of intelligence or scientific evidence” that pointed to that conclusion.

When he testified before the house chose the Coronavirus Pandemic Sub -Committee in April 2023, Ratcliffe said that Lab Leak theory was “the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, of science and of common sense.”