FBI Director Chris Wray said on Tuesday that Beijing thwarted the efforts by the US and others for investigation the origin of the coronavirus.
In interview with Fox NewsWray said the FBI believes Covid likely originated from a “potential laboratory incident” in Wuhan, however the Chinese government essentially interfered with the agency’s ongoing investigation.
“The FBI has been assessing for a very long time that the source of the pandemic is most certainly a possible lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News host Bret Baier.
“Let me just indicate that it seems to me that the Chinese government is doing all the pieces in its power to thwart and obscure the work here, the work we’re doing, the work our US government and close foreign partners are doing, and that’s unlucky for everybody,” added Wray.
The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The director’s comments got here after the U.S. Department of Energy stated with “little confidence” that Covid pandemic “probably” comes from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, according to a secret report provided to key lawmakers within the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Lawmakers were briefed on the report last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, two sources told NBC News on Sunday. The primary information was provided by the Wall Street Journal.
Wray’s comment got here Tuesday after Baier noted that the Department of Energy had quoted past FBI findings in its report.
AND report commissioned by President Joe Biden on the origin of Covid, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in August 2021, found that one US intelligence agency assessed with moderate confidence that the virus had infected people after a laboratory incident; 4 other agencies assessed with low certainty that the virus appeared naturally. The report didn’t name the agency, but intelligence officials told NBC News that the FBI was a moderately trusted agency.
Sources say the CIA is one of two intelligence agencies undecided concerning the origin of the virus.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning, he said earlier on Tuesday that China has “at all times been open and transparent” about Covid.
Mao had previously criticized the Department of Energy’s assessment, pointing to a 2021 WHO mission report to Wuhan that said it was “extremely improbable” that the virus originated in a laboratory. The US and other countries criticized the report, claiming that China had withheld the info.
Wray touted the work of the FBI investigators in an interview with Fox News, noting that they include virologists and microbiologists.
He said “there aren’t many details I can share that are not classified” but “our work on that continues.”
A classified Energy Department report upholds the consensus that was Covid not the result of Chinese bioweapons, a US official said. In its assessment, the Department of Energy also described a “probable” lab-related leak as an “accident,” the official added.
The Department of Energy is one of the 18 government departments and agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.
A Department of Energy spokesman said in a weekend statement that the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence specialists in investigating the origins of COVID-19 as directed by the president.”
Lawmakers said on Tuesday it was necessary to know the origins of the virus.
“The principal reason for understanding where this pandemic got here from is in order that we are able to prevent a future pandemic from happening. It is not about playing gotcha,” said Congressman Mike Gallagher of R-Wis., who chairs the House Select Committee on China. “But [China] have to be held accountable for concealing them.”
Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., said, “China is clearly at great risk of this,” but “the lab leak story is just not anti-Chinese. It’s just – you are trying to get to the underside of it so it could possibly prevent the following one.”
Senator Susan Collins of R-Maine said confirmation of the lab leak theory “would have an effect” on US policy.
“There was an attempt to discredit this origin theory, which I never understood. For me, we should always want to know where the origin was. We should always also protest to that country, on this case China, that trying to cover it up since it has delayed our ability to respond to the pandemic,” she said.