CNN
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The CIA now assesses the virus that caused Covid-19 more likely to have originated from an accidental lab leak in China than to have occurred naturally, according to a statement from the agency on Saturday, directed by John Ratcliffe. A few days after taking over the reins.
The agency has said for years that it doesn’t have enough information to determine which original theory is more likely — and its new assessment is only a “low confidence” judgment. It still assumes that a natural origin scenario is possible.
But the decision to go public and make the diagnosis public represents one of the first major moves by Ratcliffe, who has long supported the theory that the pandemic stemmed from research in China. And he expressed this determination in an interview. Breitbart Thursday that he would make the issue a first-day priority.
“I’ve been on the record as you know saying that I think our intelligence, our science and our common sense all really dictate that the origin of Covid was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Ratcliffe said. told Breitbart. “But the CIA has not made that assessment or at least not made that assessment publicly. So I’m going to focus on that and look at the intelligence and make sure that the public is aware that the agency is about to move away from him.
A US official emphasized that the new assessment predates the Trump administration. The agency’s director under former President Joe Biden, Bill Burns, had urged analysts to take a stand on the origins of the pandemic, the official said, adding that the assessment was the U.S. government’s best before Donald Trump took office on Monday. was entered and published.
It was not based on new intelligence gathered by the U.S. government — officials have long said such intelligence was unlikely to emerge after so many years — and instead on existing information. Arrived after review.
“The CIA is evaluating whether both research-related and natural sources of the COVID-19 pandemic are plausible,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
“We have little confidence in this decision and will continue to review any available reliable new intelligence reporting or open source information that may change the CIA’s assessment.”
According to a report released by the Office of the Director of Intelligence in 2023, every U.S. intelligence agency still unanimously maintains that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon, but the origin of the virus. There is no consensus about
Almost all US intelligence agencies also estimate that the virus itself was not genetically engineered, the report said.
But the intelligence community has been unable to determine with great confidence whether the outbreak started in a lab leak or in the wild, and is divided on the question.
Many scientists believe that the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans after an outbreak in a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Meanwhile, proponents of the “lab leak theory” believe that the virus originated from work at a Chinese laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The idea, which has been the subject of much attention from Republican lawmakers, was embraced by Trump in his first term. The State Department under Trump began an effort to prove that the virus originated in a Chinese lab, but was shut down by the Biden administration.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Shania Shelton contributed to this report.
