FBI Director Christopher Wray said this week that COVID-19 “most likely” leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
QUICK FACTS:
- The FBI Director Christopher Wray acknowledged Tuesday that the COVID-19 virus “most likely” leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
- “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News.
- Wray admitted that individuals within the FBI’s sole “focus” is to examine threats including viruses like COVID.
- “The FBI has folks who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like novel viruses like COVID, and the concerns that in the wrong hands the threats that those could pose,” Wray said.
- “So here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government controlled lab that killed millions of Americans and that’s precisely what that capability was designed for.”
FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY ON CHINA HIDING THE ORIGINS OF COVID-19:
“I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that’s unfortunate for everybody,” Wray said.
BACKGROUND:
- Wray’s comments come following a classified intelligence report that was provided to the White House and Congress earlier this week concluding that the most likely origin of the virus was due to a laboratory leak.
- The report noted that different agencies within the intelligence community have come to disparate conclusions regarding the origin of the pandemic.
- The Energy Department’s conclusion was based on new intelligence and was reached with “low confidence,” according to sources familiar with the report, the Wall Street Journal noted.
- The Energy Department’s conclusion is significant because of its expertise and its oversight of several national laboratories that conduct advanced biological research.
- The almost five-page updated report was not requested by Congress and officials have not indicated whether an unclassified version of the report will be released.
