FBI Director Chris Wray said Tuesday that Beijing has stymied efforts by the U.S. and others to research the origins of the coronavirus.
In an interview with Fox News, Wray said the FBI believes Covid probably originated from a “potential lab incident” in Wuhan, but that the Chinese government has essentially interfered with the agency’s ongoing probe.
“The FBI has for quite a while now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are probably a possible lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News host Bret Baier.
“I’ll just make the remark that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to attempt to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and shut foreign partners are doing, and that is unlucky for everyone,” Wray added.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The director’s comments come after the U.S. Energy Department concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid pandemic “likely” originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, in keeping with a classified report delivered to key lawmakers on the House and Senate Intelligence committees.
The lawmakers were briefed on the report last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, two sources told NBC News on Sunday. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Wray’s comments Tuesday got here after Baier noted that the Energy Department had cited the FBI’s earlier findings in its report.
A report commissioned by President Joe Biden on the origins of Covid, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in August 2021, showed that one U.S. intelligence agency had assessed with moderate confidence that the virus infected humans after a lab-associated incident; 4 other agencies assessed with low confidence that the virus emerged naturally. The report didn’t name the agencies, but intelligence officials have told NBC News that the FBI was the agency with moderate confidence.
Sources have said the CIA is considered one of two intelligence agencies which are undecided on the virus’s origins.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said earlier Tuesday that China has “at all times been open and transparent” about Covid.
Mao previously criticized the Energy Department assessment, pointing to a 2021 report by a WHO mission to Wuhan that found it “extremely unlikely” that the virus originated in a lab. The U.S. and other countries have criticized that report, saying China had withheld data.
Wray touted the work of FBI investigators within the Fox News interview, noting they include virologists and microbiologists.
He said “there’s not an entire lot of details I can share that are not classified,” but “our work related to this continues.”
The Energy Department’s classified report maintains the consensus that Covid was not the result of a Chinese bioweapon, a U.S. official said. In its assessment, the Energy Department also described the “likely” laboratory-related leak as an “accident,” the official added.
The Energy Department is considered one of 18 government departments and agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.
A spokesperson for the Energy Department said in a press release over the weekend that the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, because the President directed.”
Lawmakers said Tuesday it was vital to seek out out the origins of the virus.
“The essential reason to grasp where this pandemic got here from is in order that we will prevent a future pandemic from happening. It isn’t to play gotcha,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who chairs a House select committee on China. “But [China] must be held accountable for his or her cover-up.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said, “China obviously could be very threatened by this,” but “the lab leak story will not be anti-Chinese. It’s just — you are attempting to resolve it so you may prevent the following one.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said a confirmation of the lab leak theory would “have an effect” on U.S. policy.
“There was an try to discredit that theory of origin, which I’ve never understood. To me we must always need to know where the origin was. And we must always also protest to the country, China on this case, that attempting to cover this up, because that delayed our ability to reply to the pandemic,” she said.
