FBI Director Says Covid ‘Most Likely’ Emerged from Chinese Lab Leak
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that Covid likely escaped from a laboratory in China, issuing the first public opinion of the sort from the agency on the origins of the virus that plagued the world for over two years.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News in an interview. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
The FBI had been investigating the question for months. Wray said that the Chinese regime has been attempting to “thwart and obfuscate” that inquiry.
“That’s unfortunate for everybody,” he said.
The bureau reportedly arrived at the conclusion regarding Covid’s source in 2021, but this is the first time Wray has publicly made the statement confirming the FBI’s acceptance of the lab-leak hypothesis. A declassified intelligence report released in November 2021 previously revealed that the FBI concluded with “moderate confidence” that the pandemic began with a “laboratory accident” following a 90-day review ordered by President Biden.
Recently, the Department of Energy determined that Covid likely stemmed from a laboratory mishap, according to a classified intelligence report included in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.
Marking a change from 2021, when it was undecided on how the virus originated, the Energy Department, which oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, made its judgment with “low confidence,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
While both the Energy Department and FBI had agreed that an unintended lab leak was likely the cause of the pandemic, both agencies made their assessment for different reasons, sources told the Journal.
In response to the Biden administration agencies’ public embrace of the lab leak theory this week, China on Monday accused the U.S. of politicizing the pandemic and rejected the Energy Department’s analysis.
“Covid tracing is a scientific issue that should not be politicized,” Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said in response to the department’s finding, according to the New York Times. Ning also demanded the U.S. “stop defaming China” by normalizing the lab-leak theory.
