The so-called Wuhan lab leak theory has been around almost since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. As the moniker suggests, it is the suspicion that the virus did not originate in a Chinese “wet market,” as everyone was originally told. Rather, it was released – intentionally or not – from a laboratory belonging to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Anyone who espoused this theory was branded a racist and/or a nut-job, but, more than two years after the fact, the lab leak theory has gone from being considered irresponsible and idiotic to likely accurate, though still not confirmed. It now appears the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively involved in the effort to discredit the idea.
The CIA put together a team of seven people to divine the origin of the virus that led to the almost complete shutdown of the global economy. Six on the seven-member team concluded that everything pointed to the Wuhan lab as being the likely origin point of COVID-19. Today, most of the US Intelligence Community (IC) concurs.
The Wuhan Lab Cover-Up
Here’s where it gets interesting, though – or perhaps alarming. One senior CIA officer told a House committee the agency paid the six discovery team members handsomely to abandon their conclusions about the origin of the virus. Instead, they were asked – or bribed, if the whistleblower has the facts straight – to agree with the theory that the virus jumped from animals to humans.
Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) have written to the CIA, requesting all documents and communications from the agency’s coronavirus discovery team. Additionally, the lawmakers have asked for details on what the CIA team members were paid.
A group of Republican senators have also demanded answers from the CIA. “These allegations are deeply concerning and raise serious questions about the Agency’s investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote in a separate letter.
It is now widely accepted that the Wuhan lab was indeed the most likely source of the virus. The authorities certainly went to great lengths, it appears, to protect the Chinese from any culpability. There are some compelling theories about why they would do such a thing. That US government agencies were involved in funding research at the Wuhan lab is not in question – and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s name is one that arises often. Congressional Republicans are digging deep, trying to find out what they can about where COVID-19 came from, why and how.
Of course, when the government insists that a thing definitely did not happen, it is always safe to assume there is at least a pretty good chance that the thing – whatever it was – happened. When the government says there’s no connection between one thing and another, it’s probably a good idea to look for a connection. This is true, regardless of which political party is moving the levers of power.
(Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The CIA denies the whistleblower’s allegation. “At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity,” Director of Public Affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp told the New York Post. “We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them.”
Unfortunately, the CIA is another federal agency that has lost a lot of credibility over the last few years (some people with knowledge of the agency’s longer history would probably chuckle at that). Not long after The Post broke the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop showing up at a Delaware computer repair shop, 42 current and former members of the IC signed a letter claiming the laptop likely did not belong to the president’s son but was, in fact, a Russian information (disinformation) operation. That letter was deceptive, though. The laptop turned out to be real, and its contents sparked a huge corruption scandal that has enveloped the Biden family.
Of the 42 who signed that letter (nine more IC officials approved it but did not sign), no fewer than 40 of them are former CIA officials – including two former agency directors. Probably several of the nine who did not put their names on that letter were, or are, also CIA. Little wonder, then, that the agency is now suspected of more deception by helping to divert attention away from the now-infamous Wuhan lab.
