WASHINGTON — For years, the CIA has stated that it lacked sufficient information to determine whether the COVID-19 pandemic originated naturally in a wet market in Wuhan, China, or as a result of an accidental leak at a research lab there.
However, the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts stating that they now support the lab theory.
According to officials, the agency’s shift is not based on new intelligence. Rather, it is based on the same evidence that it has been mulling over for months.
According to people familiar with the agency’s work, the analysis is partly based on a closer look at the conditions in Wuhan province’s high-security labs prior to the pandemic outbreak.
A spokesperson for the agency stated that the other theory is still plausible and that the agency will continue to evaluate any credible new intelligence reporting.
Some American officials believe the debate is irrelevant: the Chinese government failed to regulate its markets or oversee its laboratories. Others argue that it is a critical intelligence and scientific question.
John Ratcliffe, the new CIA director, has long supported the lab leak hypothesis. He has stated that it is a critical piece of intelligence that must be understood, and that it has implications for US-China relations.
The shift was announced shortly after Ratcliffe told Breitbart News that he no longer wanted the agency to be “on the sidelines” of the debate over the origins of the COVID pandemic. Ratcliffe has long maintained that the virus most likely originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Officials stated that the agency was not bending its views to accommodate a new boss, and that the new assessment had been planned for some time.
Jake Sullivan, the Biden administration’s national security adviser, ordered a new classified review of the pandemic’s origins in the final weeks of his tenure.
As part of that review, the agency’s previous director, William Burns, told analysts that they needed to take a position on the origins of COVID, but he wasn’t sure which theory they should support, according to a senior US intelligence official.
Another senior US official stated that Ratcliffe decided to declassify and release the new analysis.
Since the pandemic’s outbreak, there have been concerns about whether the two labs handling coronaviruses in Wuhan adhered to strict safety protocols.
The agency issued its new assessment with “low confidence,” indicating that the intelligence supporting it is fragmentary and incomplete.
Even in the absence of hard intelligence, the lab leak hypothesis has gained traction within spy agencies. However, some analysts question the wisdom of shifting a position in the absence of new evidence.
Former officials say they are open to the Trump administration conducting a new investigation into the origins of COVID. President Joe Biden ordered a new review of intelligence early in his administration after officials informed the White House that they still had unexamined evidence.
Ratcliffe has raised concerns about politicization within intelligence agencies. Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence during the first Trump administration, argued in a 2023 Fox News essay that the CIA did not want to embrace the lab leak in order to avoid geopolitical problems for the Biden administration.
“The real problem is, the only assessment the agency could make — which is that a virus that killed over a million Americans originated in a CCP-controlled lab whose research included work for the Chinese military — has enormous geopolitical implications that the Biden administration does not want to face head-on,” he said in the article, which was authored by Cliff Sims, the agency’s top aide. CCP stands for China’s Communist Party.
Ratcliffe stated Thursday, when he was sworn in, that investigating the origins of COVID was a “Day 1” priority.
“I think our intelligence, our science and our common sense all really dictate that the origins of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he shared with Breitbart.
“However, the CIA has not made that assessment, at least not publicly. So I’m going to focus on that, look at the intelligence, and make sure the public understands that the agency is going to get off the sidelines.”
Senior intelligence officials in the Biden administration defend their procedures and methodologies. They have stated that no intelligence was suppressed and that politics did not influence their analysis.
These officials claim that while there are compelling logical arguments for both the lab leak and the natural causes theories, there is simply no decisive piece of intelligence on either side of the debate.
To support the natural origins theory, intelligence officers would like to find the animal that transmitted it to a human, or a bat carrying the likely ancestor of the coronavirus that causes COVID.
Similarly, to close the lab leak, the intelligence community wants to find evidence that one of the Wuhan labs was working on a progenitor virus that directly contributed to the epidemic.
Neither piece of evidence was found.
However, Ratcliffe has promised a more aggressive CIA, and it is possible that he will order additional actions to penetrate Wuhan’s labs or the Chinese government in search of information.
It will not be a simple secret to steal. According to American officials, the Chinese government’s senior ranks are unaware of and unwilling to learn about the situation. So, if intelligence exists, it is most likely hidden in a difficult-to-access location.
Intelligence officials interviewed in recent weeks say such evidence could exist in a Chinese lab, at least in theory. However, they believe that scientific breakthroughs, rather than intelligence revelations, will provide answers to questions about the virus’s origins.
Under the Biden administration, the intelligence community supported the theory that the virus originated in the market. However, officials readily admitted that it was not a sure thing.
Five agencies, including the National Intelligence Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency, concluded that natural exposure was the most likely cause of the epidemic. However, they stated that they lacked confidence in their assessment.
Until now, two agencies, the FBI and the Department of Energy, believed a laboratory leak was more likely. But their theories differ. The FBI believes the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Energy Department placed its bet on another lab, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.
Officials declined to say whether the CIA believes one lab was the more likely source of the virus.
