The Energy Department has concluded with “low confidence” that the Covid-19 pandemic “likely” originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China, according to a classified report delivered to key lawmakers on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
Key lawmakers on the intelligence committees were briefed about the classified report last month by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), according to these sources.
One source cautioned that the DOE’s conclusion is not being viewed as highly significant within the intelligence community due to ongoing interagency disagreements about the origins of Covid.
A Department of Energy spokesperson told that the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, called for “extensive public hearings” if the U.S. intelligence community conclusively determines that Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
“Think about what just happened over the last three years, one of the biggest pandemics in a century. A lot of evidence that it’s coming from the Chinese,” Sullivan said.
China has denied the theory that Covid originated from a laboratory leak, previously dismissing it as a “conspiracy.” House Republicans have initiated their own investigations into the origins of the pandemic.
The ODNI responded to a February 13 letter from Reps. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, and Brad Wenstrup, chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, requesting “information about the origins of COVID-19.”
A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee told that the committee is “reviewing the classified information provided.”
When asked about the classified report on Sunday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that “there is not a definitive answer” from the intelligence community on the origins of Covid.
“There is a variety of views in the intelligence community. Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other.
A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure,” Jake Sullivan said.
“If we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress, and we will share it with the American people,” Jake Sullivan added. “But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”
