Intelligence Community releases declassified COVID origins report, lawmakers say it ‘lends credence’ to lab leak theory

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday released its declassified report examining potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 10-page report reveals that the US Intelligence Community found “biosafety concerns” present at the Wuhan laboratory and assessed that “genetic engineering” of coronavirus was indeed taking place at the Chinese facility where researchers affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army also performed work. 

The document also explains that some scientists at the Wuhan lab fell ill in the fall of 2019 with symptoms “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19.” 

The report, however, cautions that “Almost all IC [intelligence community] agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered.”

“Most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination. All IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon,” the report states. 

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who serves on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, decried the lack of transparency by the ODNI in reaching its limited findings. 

Marshall had previously requested access to the “actual individual IC element assessments” used by the ODNI to draft its classified report on COVID origins, which was delivered to Congress earlier this year. The ODNI refused to hand them over. 

“As we’ve seen nearly every step of the way while trying to uncover the origins of COVID-19 virus, the Biden Administration has failed to be transparent with the American people and members of Congress,” Marshall told The Post. “Today’s release of the declassified documents is late and does not provide the full picture of what our intelligence agencies know.”

The Kansas Republican further demanded that the authors of the report appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs to explain their findings to the public. 

“As a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, I believe all of those individuals within our intelligence community should appear before the Committee and walk us through these materials so we can get to the bottom of the Covid-19 pandemic that killed over a million Americans,” he said. “I will not rest until the American people know the truth, the bad actors are held accountable, and we make sure this can never happen again.” 

Both the Department of Energy and the FBI have assessed that a laboratory leak incident was the most likely cause of the first human COVID-19 infection.

A senior member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence told The Post on Friday that “the lab leak is more than possible, it becomes probable” based on the ODNI report findings. 

“Scientists have suggested that SARS-Cov-2 is the result of a recombination between two different viruses one close to RaTG13 (from a bat) and the other related to a Pangolin virus.  In other words, it is a chimera between the two existing viruses,” another senior member on the same committee on Intelligence told The Post.   

“The ODNI report acknowledges the WIV had the RaTG13 virus in its holdings and WIV scientists were studying pangolin samples. The report also acknowledges that WIV researchers have created chimeras through genetic engineering to create unrelated infections viruses,” the member added. 

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) issued a joint statement Friday calling the ODNI report a “ promising step toward full transparency.” 

“Over one million Americans and nearly 7 million people worldwide have tragically died from COVID-19. Everyone deserves to know the truth, and the declassification of this report is a promising step toward full transparency,” the congressmen wrote. 

Turner and Wenstrup, who both believe the lab leak hypothesis, added that Friday’s report “lends credence” to the theory.  

“The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have some serious explaining to do,” they wrote. “This declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Intelligence Community lends credence to the ‘lab leak’ theory, which suggests that the coronavirus outbreak most likely originated from a Wuhan virology lab in China.”

“This is on top of the Government Accountability Office’s report released last week outlining the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Chinese entities known to be doing coronavirus research. While we appreciate the report from ODNI, the corroboration of all available evidence along with further investigation into the origins of COVID-19 must continue.”