A new whistleblower testimony before Congress claims that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) meddled with science when it tried to pay off analysts to bury findings suggesting that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
A senior-level CIA agent told House committee leaders that his employer attempted to pay off not one, not two, but six different analysts to cover up findings that suggest COVID originated in a Chinese laboratory. If these analysts agreed to change their story to claim that the virus magically transferred from animals to humans, then the CIA would pay them a handsome cash reward.
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Oh.) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Oh.) have both since requested that the CIA’s COVID Discovery Team procure all requested documents, communications, and payment information by no later than September 26.
“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the two House panel chairmen wrote in a letter to CIA Director William Burns.
“The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis.”
The letter goes on to state claims from said whistleblower that the other six members were offered “a significant monetary incentive to change their position” to the zoonosis theory believed by the seventh member.
It was further noted in the letter that all seven of these analysts are “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise,” meaning their opinions and viewpoints hold great value in terms of how they impact public health policy.
In addition to requesting all documents, communications and paystubs from the CIA internally, Wenstrup and Turner also want all such information as it exists between the CIA and other federal agencies such as the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Energy Department.
CIA denies all wrongdoing, says it’s “committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity”
A separate letter from the House committee fingers former CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis as also having “played a central role” in the agency’s COVID investigation. Makridis was asked to take a seat for a transcribed interview.
In a statement to the New York Post about the matter, CIA Director of Public Affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp tried to claim that her agency is fully trustworthy and would never engage in a bribery scheme like this in order to steer the COVID narrative.
“At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions,” Thorp said. “We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them. We will keep our congressional oversight committees appropriately informed.”
Out of all the federal intelligence agencies that have made any kind of determination about the matter, the FBI was actually the first to conclude that COVID more than likely came from a Chinese lab. After that, the Energy Department also came to the same conclusion.
As of now, the CIA and one other intelligence agency say they “remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”
By Ethan Huff