CIA claims Covid-19 leaked from Chinese lab.

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The CIA has concluded that Covid-19 may have leaked from a laboratory in China in a new assessment of the origins of the epidemic that has killed millions of people.

The US intelligence agency said it had concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 virus had leaked from the research facility, saying there was not enough data to make a conclusion about the change.

“The CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 outbreak is more likely than a natural origin,” the agency said in a statement on Saturday.

“The CIA continues to evaluate research-related and natural-origin cases of the COVID-19 outbreak as plausible.”

The US intelligence community, made up of 18 agencies, has been investigating the origins of Covid-19 for the past four years to determine whether the virus emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan or from a virology facility in Wuhan. In the city of China.

The CIA joined the FBI and the Department of Energy in claiming the virus came from a Wuhan lab. But he said he had “low confidence in this judgment” and would continue to review any credible new intelligence reports or open-source information that might change his assessment.

The new assessment was released just days after John Ratcliffe was sworn in as CIA director.

In an interview with Breitbart News after President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence agency was confirmed, Ratcliffe said intelligence and common sense believe “the origin of the virus is a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” “The public knows that the agency (CIA) is about to leave”.

A US official said former CIA chief Bill Burns during the Biden administration told the CIA team reviewing the evidence to take a position on the origins of Covid-19, but did not rule on the outcome.

Burns’ directive comes as former national security adviser Jake Sullivan prepares to leave office on the Biden team, ordering the intelligence community to take another look at the origins of the outbreak.

A US official urged the CIA to revise its assessment before Ratcliffe was sworn in as the new director.

“I have said from the beginning that Covid probably came from a water lab. Communist China covered it up and the liberal media reported it, said Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation for the origin of Covid, and I commend Director Ratcliffe for keeping his promise to release this conclusion. The most important thing now is to make China pay for the scourge it has unleashed on the world.

The Chinese Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment.

The new CIA assessment change comes a week after Trump held his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since at least 2021. Many foreign policy experts had expected Trump to take a hard line on China — particularly on trade — early on, and the president has so far held off on taking any tough steps against Beijing during his week in office.

In an interview with Fox News this week, Trump said that while the tariffs would give him “tremendous power” against China, he “shouldn’t use it.”

Also, TikTok’s Chinese owner signed an executive order extending the deadline for the popular video app to avoid a ban in the US.