FBI Had Evidence That COVID Leaked From a Lab — But Wasn’t Allowed to Present It

"The Biden administration excluded the FBI from an August 2021 White House intelligence briefing, preventing the bureau from presenting evidence supporting the theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab, the Wall Street Journal reported...

[F]ormer FBI Senior Scientist Jason Bannan said the White House only invited proponents of the 'zoonotic' — or animal origin theory of COVID-19 to the August 2021 briefing...

The report revealed conflicts between the FBI — which supported the lab-leak theory with 'moderate confidence' — and other intelligence agencies. Despite a lack of consensus, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines opted to brief President Joe Biden and top aides only on evidence supporting the zoonotic theory.

'It's striking that the people who were the foremost proponents of the lab-leak theory weren’t invited by the White House to the actual briefing, where these theories were hashed out,' [Michael R.] Gordon [of the Wall Street Journal] said.

'There was a plan to control the narrative'

Journalist Paul D. Thacker, a former U.S. Senate investigator, told The Defender the report 'further reinforces what we have long known, that the intelligence community has not released all the information on COVID origins, despite a law' — the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 — 'signed by Biden, requiring them to do so'...

Dr. Meryl Nass, a biological warfare epidemiologist and founder of Door to Freedom, told The Defender the Journal report showed 'there was a plan to control the narrative.'

‘Mixture of motives’ may have led to suppression of lab-leak evidence...

[T]here are several likely reasons proponents of the lab-leak theory were excluded...

'There was probably a mixture of motives, from a fear that this episode could derail the larger relationship with the Chinese government to the possible desire of intelligence agencies and the NIH to cover up a scheme for gaining insight into Chinese biological warfare research,' [New York Times science journalist Nicholas] Wade said."