Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the coronavirus made a visit to the institute in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
At the time, the FBI was the only government agency concluding that a lab leak origin theory was most likely.
Yet, according to FBI senior scientist Jason Bannan, who was tasked with helping lead the agency's investigation into COVID-19's origins, neither he nor any of his agency counterparts were invited to share their assessment during an August 2021 briefing with the president, led by the White House's National Intelligence Council, that sought to share the intel community's position on natural versus artificial origins of COVID-19.
"Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing," Bannan told the Wall Street Journal. "I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask."
Additionally, according to sources familiar with the matter, three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, a sub-agency within the Department of Defense's Defense Intelligence Agency, were also blocked from sharing their research that concluded the coronavirus originated from a lab leak. Ultimately, a Defense Intelligence Agency Inspector General report was commissioned to find out whether the three scientists' assessment was suppressed.
Virologist Shi Zheng-li, left, works with her colleague in the P4 lab of Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. (Feature China/Barcroft Studios/Future Publishing)
In response to the assertions made in the Wall Street Journal's report, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community-wide assessment of the origins of COVID-19 included input "from across the community on the two main hypotheses of the origins of the pandemic in line with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity."
The spokesperson added that efforts were made to ensure that both of these viewpoints were included in the intelligence assessment, in line with the "standard process" for typical coordination of a National Intelligence Council assessment.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-suppressed-intel-officials-views-supported-covid-lab-leak-theory-report