President Joe Biden failed to meet the Sunday night deadline established by a bipartisan law, that he himself signed, to declassify “all information related to potential connections between the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and the origins of COVID-19.
During an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) stated that Congress had passed legislation, with strong support, compelling the Biden administration to declassify all pertinent intelligence regarding the origins of COVID-19. Gallagher, who sponsored the House version of the bill, emphasized widespread backing for the measure.
In addition, Gallagher highlighted that President Biden cannot afford to disregard the substantial bipartisan consensus. He emphasized the necessity for Congress to utilize all available means to enforce the law and guarantee that the president fulfills his obligation of making this information accessible to the public.
As stated in the law, the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, was directed to declassify all information pertaining to potential connections between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of COVID-19. This includes intelligence regarding the activities conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in collaboration with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army, as well as any research or related activities concerning coronaviruses conducted at the institute before the outbreak.
A June 18 deadline for President Joe #Biden’s administration to #declassify and release documents pertaining to the origins of #COVID19 has come and gone without a clear response. https://t.co/lWQ5NmjEX8
— NTD News (@NTDNews) June 20, 2023
However, on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal supported the claims made by journalist Michael Shellenberger from the Twitter Files, despite the Biden administration’s failure to adhere to the law that they had previously agreed to. The report confirmed that scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who fell ill in November 2019, were conducting research on coronaviruses resembling SARS and receiving funding from the United States.
In August 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released an evaluation stating that four U.S. intelligence agencies, along with the National Intelligence Council, expressed “low confidence” in the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory. Instead, they concluded that the virus was highly probable to have a natural origin.
In October 2021, the ODNI made public a declassified report titled “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis.” This report essentially provided a summary of an FBI report released earlier that year, which stated that the bureau held a “moderate confidence” in the belief that COVID-19 had originated from a Chinese government laboratory.
In March, John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, discredited the CIA’s claims of insufficient information to determine the origins of COVID-19. Ratcliffe had previously supported the theory that the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan, citing strong evidence. He dismissed the CIA’s assertions as “utter nonsense.”
