2024-12-27 19:27:00
Top US intelligence officials reportedly “silenced” researchers from the Department of Defense and FBI who uncovered strong evidence pointing to a lab leak as the origin of COVID-19, The New York Post has reported.
As part of a report on COVID’s origins delivered to President Biden in August 2021, evidence supporting the lab leak theory was allegedly suppressed.
According to the final report, the virus was “probably not genetically engineered”. The same view was pushed by multiple intelligence agencies.
However, research by scientists at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) revealed a different story—one that pointed to the lab leak theory as the more plausible explanation, the NY Post report said.
The DIA team, led by John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien, found troubling signs.
They discovered that the virus had a feature that made it easier to infect humans, similar to a method described in a 2008 Chinese study.
They also found that a Chinese military researcher had applied for a vaccine patent just weeks after the virus was first sequenced, something that raised serious questions regarding China’s knowledge of the virus.
Moreover, WIV researchers were collaborating with US scientists, learning how to engineer viruses without leaving any trace.
Despite the significance of these findings, sources told The New York Post that they were left out of the briefing that was prepared for Biden.
Officials reportedly went so far as to block the scientists from sharing their conclusions with US Congress, even after Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) specifically asked for the information.
This left President Biden and others in the dark about the growing evidence that COVID might have leaked from a lab.
The report that was presented to Biden backed the theory that the virus jumped from animals to humans while the evidence supporting the lab leak was ignored.
The FBI, which was the only US agency to conclude that the lab leak was the most likely cause of the pandemic, was also excluded from the briefing. Jason Bannan, an FBI scientist, said it was “surprising” that the agency wasn’t included in the White House discussion, given its stance.
The controversy has reignited calls for a more transparent investigation into COVID-19’s origins and how critical intelligence was handled early on in the pandemic.
