U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a reception celebrating Nowruz within the East Room on the White House in Washington, March 20, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Joe Biden on Monday signed laws requiring the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information on any possible links between a lab in China and the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The House and the Senate unanimously passed the laws earlier this month. The push to make public classified information on the origins of the pandemic comes after the Energy Department concluded with “low confidence” that the virus is probably going the results of an accidental laboratory leak in China.
“In implementing this laws, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to guard against the disclosure of knowledge that may harm national security,” Biden said in an announcement.
Under the laws, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has 90 days to declassify all information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of Covid. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a significant center of coronavirus research.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also concluded that the pandemic likely began with a lab incident in Wuhan, China, the agency’s director Christopher Wray told Fox News earlier this month.
“The FBI has for quite a while now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most probably a possible lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “Here you might be talking a few potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.”
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The Wall Street Journal first reported the Energy Department’s assessment, citing individuals who had read a classified report. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wouldn’t confirm or deny the report, but said Biden had specifically requested that national labs under the Energy Department take part in a review of how the pandemic began.
The pandemic began three years ago in Wuhan, China, though it’s still unknown how Covid spread to people. The intelligence community was divided in a 2021 report ordered by Biden that reviewed information on the pandemic’s origins. The intel agencies agreed that an infected animal and a lab accident were each plausible hypotheses.
4 unnamed agencies within the 2021 report concluded with low confidence that an infected animal spread the virus to people.
A recent evaluation conducted by international scientists found genetic material from racoon dogs in samples from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market that tested positive for Covid. Though the evaluation doesn’t prove the racoon dogs were infected with virus, it provides some additional data that’s consistent with a possible virus spillover from animals to people.
The scientists pulled the samples from a world database. The samples subsequently disappeared from that database. The World Health Organization on Friday called on Beijing to release those samples.
“These data could have – and will have – been shared three years ago,” said WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We proceed to call on China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the mandatory investigations and share the outcomes.”