Christian Smith
(NewsNation) – The Republican chairman of a Congressional committee investigating the origins of COVID-19 says that after seeing classified State Department documents, he was left with the impression that the Wuhan lab leak theory is correct.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, says there is enough credible evidence in these documents to support the claim that the coronavirus accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, where research into the disease was being done. According to WenstrupBased on what he saw, this was something the Chinese government tried to cover up.
NewsNation obtained a heavily redacted version of the documents that Wenstrup and others working for the committee were able to see.
Headings above certain paragraphs give some insight into what Wenstrup said, such as the one that asks, “Who ordered the cover-up? The signs point to Beijing, not local authorities”, and another that says: “Beijing knew earlier than they admit”.
These documents, prepared by officials from the US State Department, were requested by the commission in February last year. Although the State Department said the committee could not physically have the documents, some lawmakers and staffers were allowed to view them.
Now, Wenstrup and others in Congress are calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make these documents public, writing in a letter that the information will help “the American people gain a more complete picture of the government’s evidence regarding the origin of Covid-19.” . 19 pandemic.”
NewsNation has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Next month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s former chief medical adviser who oversaw the government’s COVID response, agreed to testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic next month. The documents are expected to be one of the focal points of this hearing.
Wuhan lab leak theory
The coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019, before spreading across the world and killing around 7 million people.
FBI Director Christopher Wray previously said the agency assessed that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan “likely caused the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The FBI has assessed for some time that the origins of the pandemic are likely a potential laboratory incident in Wuhan,” Wray said. told Fox News in an interview.
These comments came after the Wall Street Journal published a report stating that the US Department of Energy assessed, albeit with little confidence, that the pandemic resulted from an unintentional laboratory leak in China.
The low confidence designation essentially means that the evidence supporting a theory is incomplete or questionable.
Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still assess that the pandemic was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided, the Diary reported.
China rejected Wray’s comments, saying it was firmly opposed to any form of “political manipulation” of facts.
“Based on the US intelligence community’s poor record of fraud and deceit, the conclusions they draw do not have any credibility,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing. “We ask the US side to respect science and facts.”
Wray said he could not share many details of the agency’s assessment because they were confidential. However, he accused the Chinese government of “doing its best to try to frustrate and obfuscate” efforts by the United States and others to learn more about the origins of the pandemic.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
