Corona: Researchers are said to have been silenced

It is still not completely clear where the coronavirus that broke out in 2020 came from. The two persistent theories are that the disease spread either through the wildlife trade at a market in Wuhan or through a laboratory accident.

After the pandemic broke out, three scientists from the Defense Intelligence Agency, John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien, began working to figure out exactly where the virus came from.

According to new research published by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, researchers at the Department of Defense and the FBI have uncovered strong evidence that Covid-19 most likely escaped from a Chinese laboratory. But with their theory they were “silenced by secret service chiefs”.

Their findings are said to have been kept out of an August 2021 report to President Joe Biden on the origins of the global pandemic, the portals continue. That report concluded that the virus behind COVID “was unlikely to have been genetically engineered.”

The research lists several findings that the researchers are said to have come to. This includes:

But these points were “almost ignored” in the report, a source told the New York Post. In addition, the intelligence chiefs should be subject to the scientists’ obligation to share the information with Congress. Even after Senator Chuck Grassley specifically asked them to do so in a March 2021 letter. The scientists are also expected not to share their findings with the FBI – the only US intelligence agency that has concluded that a laboratory accident is the most likely theory behind the virus, the sources said.

The FBI, that a parallel investigation also was not invited to a briefing in the White House. “Because we were the only agency that believed a laboratory origin was more likely, and because we had the highest confidence in our analysis of the source of the pandemic, we assumed that the FBI would be invited to the briefing,” said FBI scientist Jason Bannan. “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that it is not usual for representatives of individual agencies to be present at briefings of this type for the president. However, the different perspectives are taken into account and the work of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the work of the National Intelligence Council on the origins of Covid-19 met “all analytical standards of the intelligence community, including objectivity.”