The CIA has changed its assessment of the origin of the Coid-19 pandemic, which now favors the laboratory leak theory. Under its new director, John RatcliffeThe agency has published an assessment on the origin of Coid-19.
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan until the end of Biden’s time in office.
Analysts rated it with “low confidence” despite former CIA Director Bill Burns, who has remained agnostic on origins, telling the agency it needs to re-look at existing evidence and come down on one side or the other.
Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of a World Health Organization team investigating the origin of the Coid-19 coronavirus visited the Institute in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province, February 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
John Ratcliffe says US faces “most challenging security environment” ever at confirmation hearing
The agency kept it for years, it didn’t have enough intelligence to decide whether it would Coid was created in a laboratory or a wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment favoring the lab’s omission, there was no indication of new evidence.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence that an investigative origin of the Coid-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. The CIA continues to assess that both the investigative and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 Pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson said for Fox News.
“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reports or open source information that could change the CIA’s assessment.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed on Thursday, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of Covid’s origins as part of a broader strategy “that deals with the threat from China.”
He also said he wanted the CIA to “step aside” and take a stand.
John Ratcliffe appears for an intelligence confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 15, 2025 in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Who renews calls on China to share data on the origin of covid 5 years later
In a March 2023 In a Fox News piece written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep the growing consensus around the lab leak theory quiet by suppressing “what can clearly be gauged from the intelligence they have.”
He also cast doubt on the idea that the CIA did not have enough evidence to conclude on the origin of the virus.
“The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is unparalleled, its ability to acquire information unmatched. And yet here we are three and a half years later and there is enough public reporting that the CIA simply does not have enough data to assess.
A Coid-19 testing sign is displayed outside a Coid-19 testing site, as Walker for Health collects test tubes in Wheeling, Ill., on Dec. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Click here to get the Fox News app
In the same work, Ratcliffe and Sims rejected the idea that the virus was naturally occurring, claiming “the complete absence of intelligence or scientific evidence” pointing to that conclusion.
When he testified before a House select committee on the coronavirus pandemic in April 2023, Ratcliffe said the lab leak theory was “the only explanation that our intelligence, science and common sense believe.”
