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Last week when US President Joe Biden ordered it US intelligence To further efforts to determine the origin of Covid-19, he gave life to the theory from the Wuhan Institute of Virology that the virus could have been a virus.
According to Biden, U.S. intelligence was created “around two scenarios” – whether the virus was naturally occurring or the result of a laboratory accident.
For the first time, the president gave credibility to the possibility of escaping the virus from a laboratory – an idea that was widespread as a conspiracy theory when Donald Trump made the claim.
Current officials and former officials said there were a number of reasons why the Biden administration was willing to publicly entertain the theory once trampled by Democrats.
The decisive factor was that critics were more open to the theory of laboratory leakage, given that Trump, who wanted to condemn China for diverting the blame for treating the pandemic, was out of office.
They also said that Biden was reacting to what the intelligence had found. He is now under political pressure to find answers.
“The Biden administration has now examined the mountain of disturbing evidence we had in the last few months of the Trump administration,” said David Asher, head of Covid’s origin research department. “It’s about throwing the jaw. And as they point out, there’s a lot more to evaluate.”
A few days before Biden was sworn in, the state department published a fact sheet at the Wuhan institute in which it was said that several investigators had fallen ill with Covid’s symptoms before the first publicly known case. The institute also said it worked secretly with the Chinese military.
Critics did not take the claim seriously, saying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tended to politicize intelligence. People also focused on the aftermath of the January 6 riots and the inauguration.
“We assumed that the data sheet would not create an immediate headline. We wanted to include the information in the record so that people could tell about these events when tensions and fevers dropped,” said David Feith, a former state department official who attended the release.
In March, Asher publicly said that some Wuhan staff members were hospitalized because they were so ill. The stories of the Wall Street Journal hospitalized three staff members and helped focus attention on the laboratory’s escape theory.
One person familiar with the discussion said the factor was among the scientists who were responsible for supporting Trump before the election or angering influential scientists who rejected the theory. This has helped to make democracy ready to study theory.
“The most important thing that has happened is that reputable virologists have spoken out since then,” he said.
Letters Science in the journal, a team of 18 renowned scientists said both theories were “feasible” and should be taken “seriously” until enough data was obtained. That said, the latest research by the World Health Organization with China has not considered the two scenarios in a balanced way.
“Even those of us who worked on the issue within the government didn’t know how far our scientific opinion was, because scientists in general weren’t talking, but you’ve broken some dams in recent months,” Feith said. including the letter and WHO research.
Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also appeared to change his stance. Last year, he said science “strongly indicates” that the virus originated naturally, but recently said he is “not convinced” and favored the research.
While Biden was explaining his view of the intelligence community in his unusual community statement, his willingness to make the provisional findings public also drew more attention to the theory of laboratory escape.
Mathew Burrows, a former senior intelligence official, said he could not remember a president making such statements, saying he historically did not want to see them trying to force a conclusion.
“It seems Republicans are trying to criticize China for anything that would have a weak response, so I think Biden wants to show that he doesn’t care about charging them. [China] there is a common consensus in the intelligence community that the virus has been removed from the laboratory in Wuhan, ”Burrows said.
Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher, who introduced a bill to disqualify all intelligence related to the investigation, also said he was responding to Biden’s political pressure, especially when members of his group asked China for permission to conduct a transparent investigation – something few experts believe Beijing would accept.
“He was feeling the pressure of the roads,” Gallagher said. “They felt a little bit of a blow. . . but it’s a good move. “
A person familiar with the situation said the National Intelligence Council, which gathers information from the entire intelligence community, made two reports last year to assess U.S. intelligence on the origins of Covid. The director of national intelligence declined to comment.
These efforts, along with the third “bush” of intelligence this year, led Biden he said last week that two of the 18 branches of the intelligence community had bowed to the natural-origin scenario, while a third was more inclined to the theory of laboratory leaks.
Biden said all three had only “low or moderate confidence” in their conclusions, while the other branches lacked enough evidence. This has raised concerns that 90 days is not enough for intelligence officials to make a firm decision.
“The community as a whole is far from reaching anything we could call a strong middle ground,” said Paul Cillar, a former senior CIA official. “The fact that many of the participating agencies have not reached an agreement to reach a ‘low-confidence’ verdict says they are far from decisive.”
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