The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has examined classified State Department records indicating that COVID-19 may have originated from a lab-related incident in Wuhan, China, and that the Chinese Communist Party may have tried to conceal this. Committee Chairman Brad Wenstrup has written to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging the declassification of these records to reveal the truth about COVID origins to the American people.
Wenstrup noted that the State Department recently provided the committee with classified documents that had previously been released in a redacted form to a nonprofit group called U.S. Right to Know. These documents suggest a close relationship between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Wenstrup emphasized the importance of declassifying this information for the American people to have a more complete understanding of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite requests for comment, the State Department did not immediately respond.
President Biden signed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which mandated the declassification of information related to the pandemic's origins. A declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in June 2023 stated that the intelligence community has not conclusively determined whether the pandemic originated from a lab leak or natural exposure to an infected animal.
While the report mentioned that both scenarios are plausible, the National Intelligence Council and other agencies lean towards natural contact with a wild animal as the most likely cause.
The U.S. Energy Department and the FBI have concluded that COVID-19 likely emerged from a lab leak in China. The report also noted that while the CIA and another agency have not reached a conclusion, it is widely agreed upon in the intelligence community that the virus was not genetically engineered as a biological weapon.