WASHINGTON — The House on Friday unanimously passed its version of a Senate-approved bill to force the White House to declassify intelligence reports in regards to the origins of COVID-19 and its ties to a Chinese lab.
The 419-0 vote sends the bill to President Biden’s desk completely unopposed in Congress after the Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent last week.
To this point, the White House has not indicated whether Biden will veto the laws, meaning Americans may soon know what intelligence officials have learned in regards to the pandemic’s source.
The bill requires Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify “any and all information regarding potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and COVID-19, in addition to “make available to the general public as much information as possible” regarding the virus’ origin.
The knowledge should help Americans understand “why the FBI director has indicated that a COVID-19 lab leak is just not only a possibility, but approaches the concept that is probably going,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said during a hearing on Tuesday.
“[The information provides] a novel insight as to what was happening at biosafety level laboratory in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and early 2020,” Turner added. “The laboratory and who was working there could be the important thing to unraveling the reality.”
The overwhelming support in Congress for releasing the knowledge comes days after reports emerged that the Energy Department had assessed with “low confidence” that the virus likely leaked from a Chinese lab.
The report was a serious breakthrough after many government officials – including former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci – insisted that evidence pointed to the worldwide pandemic originating with bats in a wet market, also in Wuhan.
While the intelligence community has not definitively determined the virus’ origin, Rep. Jim Himes said this week the discharge of the knowledge should allow “the American people can consider the perfect available information we’ve got, versus marinating and conjecture and speculation and conspiracy theories.”
