A new report reveals that the FBI, which had strong evidence suggesting that COVID-19 likely originated from a lab leak, was reportedly excluded from briefing President Biden. Despite being the only U.S. intelligence agency to conclude a lab leak was the most probable cause, the FBI was reportedly left out of the National Intelligence Council’s August 2021 briefing.
Jason Bannan, a former senior scientist at the FBI, expressed surprise that their findings were not presented to the president, given the agency’s confidence in its assessment.
Defense and FBI scientists blocked from sharing lab leak data
According to the NY Post, Dr. Jason Bannan, a microbiologist and former senior FBI scientist who dedicated much of his life to investigating the origins of COVID-19 alongside the FBI, was excluded from a crucial National Intelligence Council briefing with President Biden.
The NIC’s review, which included input from four intelligence agencies, concluded with “low confidence” that COVID-19 likely originated from an animal transmission, rather than being “genetically engineered.” At the time, a popular theory suggested the virus spread from a bat at a Wuhan wet market, where the outbreak first began in 2019.
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After the pandemic began in Wuhan, China, three scientists ( John Hardham, Robert Cutlip, and Jean-Paul Chretien) from the Defense Intelligence Agency started investigating the origin. While many, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, supported the theory that the virus originated naturally, the DIA scientists found several points that leaned toward a lab leak.
“The scientists who had the subject matter expertise were silenced,” a source said according to the NY Post, adding that Biden and other US officials were “completely unwitting” about the evidence. Whistleblower Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy claims that federal grant documents outlining a “blueprint” for engineering viruses like SARS-CoV-2 were inappropriately classified.
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Additionally, according to the Post, a Chinese military researcher applied for a vaccine patent weeks after the virus was sequenced, and a researcher from the Wuhan Institute of Virology had worked with U.S. scientists on techniques to construct viruses without leaving evidence.
Despite these findings, their evidence was largely ignored, and the scientists were forbidden from sharing it with Congress or the FBI. The FBI, which was the only U.S. agency to conclude that a lab leak was the most likely origin, was also excluded from discussions.
These scientists and their investigation were sidelined as other reports prepared by the intelligence community downplayed the lab leak theory.
Bannan criticises the ‘lack of transparency’
In his first interview with WSJ, Mr. Bannan shared his shock over the agency’s exclusion from a crucial White House briefing about the origins of COVID-19. The FBI was the only agency that strongly believed the virus likely originated from a laboratory, yet it wasn’t invited to share its findings. Mr. Bannan had expected the FBI’s conclusions to be considered, making its absence from the briefing all the more surprising.
“Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Bannan said. “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”
A spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) explained that all perspectives within the intelligence community had been fairly represented in the briefing. She added that it wasn’t typical practice to invite individual agencies to such events. The DNI and the National Intelligence Council (NIC) ensured their work on COVID-19’s origins was objective and followed analytical standards.
“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council’s work on Covid-19 origins complied with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity,” the spokeswoman claimed.
Bannan emphasised the need to reassess what was left out of the intelligence community’s review. “What ended up on the intelligence community’s cutting-room floor needs to be re-examined.” An FBI spokesperson confirmed that the agency has consistently believed that COVID-19’s origin was most likely a lab incident in Wuhan. “FBI agents and analysts studied intelligence and conducted over 200 interviews of more than 80 people since the beginning of the pandemic.”
