An affiliate of the conservative Heritage Foundation is suing the Central Intelligence Agency, accusing it of withholding records detailing bribes to analysts to bury findings that a lab leak was the most likely explanation for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The think tank Oversight Project filed a federal lawsuit against the CIA on December 22, alleging that the agency failed to comply with its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about analysts who allegedly “received monetary incentives to change their position on the origins of the virus.” ” according to a copy of the complaint first reported Tuesday by the Daily Caller.
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., asks for “a preliminary and permanent injunction compelling” the CIA to expedite production of the records requested by Heritage within 20 days or “such other date as the court deems.” appropriate.”
“The Biden Administration has refused to be transparent with Congress and the American people about the origins of COVID-19,” said Kyle Brosnan, senior adviser at the Oversight Project.
“A CIA whistleblower has made serious allegations that the agency bought off agency employees to further obstruct efforts to get to the truth about the origins of the virus. “This obstruction cannot stand and we are fighting in federal court to get to the bottom of this.”
A project at the conservative Heritage Foundation is suing the Central Intelligence Agency for withholding records about allegedly paying analysts to bury their findings on the origins of COVID-19. Getty Images The think tank Oversight Project filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against the CIA, alleging that the agency failed to comply with its September Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Future posts via Getty Images
A top CIA agent told House Republican committee chairmen in September that the agency offered payments to six analysts tasked with determining the origins of SARS-CoV-2 if they said the virus jumped from animals. to the humans.
The September 12 letter from Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) to CIA Director William Burns also demanded documentation and communications about payments.
“According to the whistleblower, at the end of their review, six of the seven team members believed that the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low-confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.” said the House. The panel chairs wrote to Burns.
A Sept. 12 letter from Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) to the CIA also demanded documents about the payments. AP
“The seventh member of the team, who was also the highest ranking, was the only officer who believed that COVID-19 originated through a zoonosis.”
“The whistleblower further maintains that in order to reach an eventual public determination of the uncertainty, the other six members received a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” they added of the group of analysts, which included “experienced officials with significant scientific knowledge.” .
The Heritage Foundation Oversight Project submitted its FOIA request for records related to the CIA’s internal analysis on September 20, but has not yet received the documents or an explanation for the delay, the complaint states.
Wenstrup has since alleged that Dr. Anthony Fauci was secretly “escorted” to CIA headquarters to “influence” the findings of those CIA analysts at one point. AP
Wenstrup has since alleged that former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was secretly “escorted” to CIA headquarters to “influence” those analysts’ findings at one point. .
In February, the FBI became the first US intelligence agency to conclude that the coronavirus pandemic likely began with a lab leak.
The Energy Department delivered the same assessment that same month, citing new intelligence.
The US intelligence community found that “biosafety concerns” and “genetic engineering” were carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists also fell ill in the fall of 2019. AFP via Getty Images
But months later, in a 10-page report, the entire US intelligence community, which includes those agencies along with others, declassified their findings on the origins of COVID, in which most “agencies assessed that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically modified.”
However, the report found that “biosecurity concerns” and “genetic engineering” were carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where several scientists fell ill in the fall of 2019 with symptoms “consistent with those of COVID-19, but not diagnoses.”
A Government Accountability Office report in June found that American taxpayers footed the bill of more than $2 million for risky gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab, made possible by grants provided by the National Institutes of Health. Health, which included Fauci’s NIAID. and the United States Agency for International Development.
A Government Accountability Office report in June found that American taxpayers footed the bill for more than $2 million in risky gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab. AP
Fauci is scheduled to appear before the House COVID subcommittee on January 8-9, 2024, to answer questions about his handling of inquiries about the US public health response and to “address the numerous controversies that have arisen during and after the crisis.” pandemic,” according to Wenstrup.
John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, testified before Congress earlier this year that the “lab leak theory” was the “only” credible explanation for the pandemic.
“My informed assessment as a person with as much access as anyone to our government’s intelligence…has been and remains that a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, science and common sense,” Ratcliffe told members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in April.
John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, testified before Congress that the “lab leak theory” was the “only” credible explanation for the pandemic. AP
“If our intelligence and evidence supporting a lab leak were placed next to our intelligence and evidence pointing to a natural origin or spillover theory, the lab leak side of the ledger would be long, compelling, even overwhelming.” , while the overflow side would be almost empty and dim.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of nearly 7 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
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