The CIA has changed its assessment of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, now favoring the lab leak theory. Under its new director, John Ratcliffethe agency has released an assessment on the origins of Covid-19.
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan near the end of Biden’s time in office.
Analysts made the assessment with “low confidence” despite former CIA Director Bill Burns, who remained agnostic about the origins, telling the agency it was necessary to revisit the existing evidence and come down on one side or the other.
Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus visited the Institute in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province February 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty images)
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The agency has maintained for years that it did not have enough intelligence to conclude whether Covid happened in a laboratory or a wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment favoring a laboratory leak, there was no indication of new evidence.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on available reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 Pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
“We have low confidence in this assessment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed Thursday, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe frames the assessment of Covid’s origins as part of a broader strategy “that addresses the threat of China.”
He also said he wants the CIA to “get off the sidelines” and take a stand.
John Ratcliffe appears before a Senate Intelligence Hearing on Capitol Hill on January 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty images)
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In one March 2023 Fox News piece co-written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to maintain a growing consensus around the lablekker theory by suppressing “what can be clearly assessed from the intelligence they possess.”
He also questioned the idea that the CIA did not have enough evidence to reach a conclusion about the origins of the virus.
“The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is unparalleled, its ability to acquire information unparalleled. And yet here we are three and a half years later and there is enough public reporting that the CIA simply doesn’t have enough information to make a to make an assessment.
A sign about COVID-19 testing is displayed outside a COVID-19 testing site as a health walker collects test tubes in Wheeling, Ill., Dec. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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In the same piece, Ratcliffe and Sims rejected the idea that the virus arose naturally, claiming there was “a complete absence of intelligence or scientific evidence” pointing to that conclusion.
Speaking before the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in April 2023, Ratcliffe said the lab leak theory was “the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense.”
