Two new bombshell
reports this week pointed to a cover-up by the Biden-era Pentagon
related to the search for COVID-19’s origins. New information is
spilling out years after the fact and pointing to Wuhan and its coronavirus lab as the origin of the pandemic all along.
First, a newly-released Department of Defense (DoD) report, made public only in recent days
by the Trump-led Pentagon, showed that the Defense Department never
formally investigated the possibility that U.S. service members may have
been infected with COVID-19 during the World Military Games in Wuhan in
the fall of 2019.
In addition, a newly-released analysis by a unit of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), made public through the Freedom of Information Act
only this week, showed that the DIA’s National Center for Medical
Intelligence (NCMI) believed early on in the pandemic that a Wuhan lab
leak was plausible despite efforts by allies of Dr. Anthony Fauci to
dismiss the possibility.
The new details on the Biden-era Pentagon’s failure to
investigate clues pointing to the fall 2019 emergence of COVID-19 in
Wuhan were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, and the revelations about the DIA unit’s analysis pointing to a Wuhan lab leak were first reported by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health research group.
The newly-published Defense Department report on the Wuhan
Military Games was written in 2022 in response to congressional demands
that the Pentagon investigate reports that U.S. military athletes got
sick with COVID-19 after they participated in competitions in October
2019 in the city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.
The public report — now released after more than two years —
concluded that there was no significant uptick at military bases tied
to the participating athletes, but also revealed that the Pentagon had not tested the service members for COVID-19
nor for antibodies, admitting that “DoD has not conducted or opened an
investigation into connections between the outbreak of COVID-19 and the
2019 World Military Games.”
The DIA NCMI’s newly public analysis — dated June 25, 2020 — concluded
that "the molecular biology capabilities of [the Wuhan lab] and genome
assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a
lab-engineered virus.” The NCMI analysis, which took nearly five years
to be made public, said the available evidence even early on was
consistent with COVID-19 emerging via lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV). WIV was led by so-called “bat woman”
Shi Zheng-li, with the U.S. medical defense scientists stating
SARS-CoV-2 could have been “part of a bank of chimeric viruses in
Zhen-Li Shi's lab at WIV that escaped containment."
The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
“It has been clear for some time that all informed scientists —
without exception — believed by early 2020 that COVID likely started
with a lab incident in Wuhan, but that most chose to lie for five
years,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, told Just the News.
“Over the last two months, it has become clear that U.S., UK, and
German intelligence agencies — without exception — also knew by early
2020 that COVID-19 likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, and also
chose to lie for five years.”
The Wuhan Military Games
The Defense Department report, put together
by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness and submitted to the House and Senate Armed Services
Committees in December 2022, cost only $4,070 to compile — perhaps
unsurprising given that the DoD admitted it had not conducted any formal
investigation of links between the U.S. service members and the
outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. The report, including the
cover page, is three pages long.
House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded
in August 2021 that the military games in Wuhan were “one of the
earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their report
contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early
September 2019 — with China then covering it up for months.
Robert Redfield, Trump’s former director of the Centers for Disease Control, had said
in March 2021 that COVID-19 “most likely” originated at the Wuhan lab
and that it spread in the Chinese city in September or October 2019.
The 2022 DoD report added that “DoD has not engaged in any
discussions with allied or partner militaries about illness associated
with participation in the 2019 World Military Games” either.
The report did show that the U.S. military’s delegation to
Wuhan consisted of 173 athletes and 90 coaches and staff — with a total
of 219 being military personnel — and that “7 Service members who
attended the games exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms during
the timeframe of October 18, 2019 through January 21, 2020.” The report
noted that “the COVID-19-like symptoms could have been caused by other
respiratory infections” and stated that “all 7 Service members' symptoms
resolved within 6 days.”
Participating service members not tested
The DoD report said that “the military facilities
supporting Service members from the 2019 World Military Games reported
no outbreaks of COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms shortly upon
returning” but that “Service members were not tested for COVID-19 or
antibodies due to their participation in the 2019 World Military Games,
as testing was not available at this early stage of the pandemic.” The
DoD provided no clarity on whether the U.S. military members were ever
tested.
“Data surveillance reports from military treatment
facilities indicate no statistically significant difference in
COVID-19-like symptoms cases at installations with participating
athletes when compared to installations without them,” the report
stated. “In addition, no significant increase in COVID-19-like signs
and/or symptoms was documented for the dates of October 2019 through
March 2020 as a result of U.S. Army separate surveillance testing.”
This newly-public report was quietly released
on the Military One Source website — which is designed as a “Support
for Military Personnel & Their Families” — years after Congress
passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022, which told
the Defense Department, then led by Secretary Lloyd Austin, that the
report “shall be submitted in unclassified form and made publicly
available on an internet website in a searchable format.”
While it was submitted to a House and a Senate committee in
late December 2022, the report wasn’t uploaded to be viewed by the
public until sometime in late March of this year after Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth had taken the reins.
GOP: Wuhan Games were a “super-spreader”
The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee report was
completed more than a year before the DoD finally made their report
public. Then-Chairman Michael McCaul said at the time:
“Satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at
hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19. At the same
time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms
similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home
countries — creating one of the earliest super-spreader events in the
world, and explaining how countries who participated in the games had
reported cases as early as November 2019.”
The Republican report
said its lab leak evidence included “athletes at the Military World
Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms
similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after.”
The GOP report zeroed in on the city of Wuhan, which was
picked to host the 7th International Military Sports Council Military
World Games in October 2019, during which “more than 9,000 military
personnel from over 100 countries stayed in Wuhan in accommodations at
an athletes village built specifically for the games.”
The Chinese state-run China Internet Information Center said
in October 2019 there were athletes from 109 countries. China’s
Organizing Committee of the 7th International Military Sports Council proclaimed that “the charm of sports will put Wuhan in global spotlight [sic].”
The Republican report noted that “four countries who sent
delegations” to the Wuhan games “have now confirmed the presence of
SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 cases within their borders in November and
December 2019” — Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France — with some of the
athletes complaining of COVID-like symptoms in Wuhan.
The World Health Organization’s joint report
with China in early 2021 said the Chinese Epidemiology Group, which
provided information on the Wuhan games, allegedly found that “no
appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease
requiring hospitalization were identified.” But the report added that
“the joint team recommends that consideration be given to further joint
review of the data on respiratory illness from the on-site clinics at
the Military Games in October 2019.”
The report’s meeting minutes from discussions between Wuhan
lab scientists and the WHO-China team also revealed that lab leak
concerns were dismissed as “rumors,” “myths,” and “conspiracy theories.”
Chinese disinformation points to U.S. military base
The Chinese government for years has continued to deflect from the Wuhan lab leak possibility by pushing a conspiracy theory
that COVID-19 originated from a U.S. military base. Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian and others pushed the baseless claims
about the U.S. military, including Maryland’s Fort Detrick, starting in
early 2020.
Zhao shared an article in March 2020 from Global Research, tweeting: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.” The Chinese official also tweeted
that month: “When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are
infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who
brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data!
U.S. owe us an explanation!” Global Research has been described by the U.S. State Department as "deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem."
Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in March 2020 that China’s claims were “completely absurd.” And the Pentagon’s “Coronavirus: Rumor Control” website said
early in the pandemic that it was a “myth” that “U.S. service members
visiting China were the source of the coronavirus outbreak.”
Then-Rep. Mike Gallagher also wrote
Lloyd Austin a letter seeking answers in June 2021, saying, “Aware that
the cluster of illnesses associated with the World Military Games casts
doubt upon the Chinese Communist Party’s official timeline, Chinese
government officials such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao
Lijian have sought to deflect blame onto the U.S.”
The GOP report from August 2021 emphasized, “If the CCP
realized an investigation would show an uptick in visits of patients
with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in September, October, and November of
2019, this would likely be the actions they would take to cover up the
source of those illnesses.”
The Republican report added: “To further drive this
narrative, CCP-controlled media outlets accused Maatje Benassi, a member
of the U.S. Army Reserve, as being ‘patient zero.’ Benassi competed at
the Military World Games without becoming ill … Two weeks after Zhao
tweeted that the U.S. army brought the virus to Wuhan, the Global Times amplified the narrative.” Global Times is not considered state-run media, but has been criticized for publishing "Pro-Chinese government propaganda"
After then-FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed
in early 2023 that the FBI had long assessed that a lab leak was the
most likely origin for COVID-19, the Chinese government returned to its
efforts to shift blame to the U.S. military.
“At present, more and more clues from the international
science community are pointing the origins of virus to sources around
the world. Many have raised questions and concerns about US bio-military
bases at Fort Detrick and around the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Mao Ning said in March 2023.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry also responded to the CIA’s new assessment earlier this year that the U.S. spy agency had “low confidence”
leaning toward a lab leak hypothesis by arguing that “the U.S. needs to
stop politicizing and weaponizing origins-tracing at once, and stop
scapegoating others” and attempting to point the finger at “relevant
U.S. biological labs.”
Pentagon leadership: "No knowledge"
In April 2020, when Trump’s then-defense secretary, Mark Esper, was asked
about COVID-19 and the Wuhan military games in April 2020, he replied,
“I’m not aware of what you’re talking about.” The then-chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, also said, “Yeah, I’m not.”
It was also reported by The Prospect
in June 2020 that, in response to questions about the Wuhan games, a
Pentagon spokesperson “issued a terse email response to the question,
saying there was no screening because the event” held in October 2019
“was prior to the reported outbreak.” The outlet said the Pentagon
spokesperson “cited December 31, 2019, as the critical outbreak day and
that no testing was deemed necessary for any possible exposure prior to
February 1, 2020.”
Then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby also reportedly told The Washington Post
in June 2021 that “the Defense Department has no knowledge of Covid-19
infections among U.S. troops participating in the 2019 World Military
Games,” with the outlet adding that Kirby “said that there’s no evidence
U.S. military personnel were infected before travel restrictions the
U.S. government implemented in early 2020.”
But as the newly-released Defense Department report revealed, the Biden Pentagon never formally investigated this saga.
Scientists within DIA pointed to a Wuhan lab leak
The second bombshell related to a never before seen June
2020 analysis by scientists within the DIA’s National Center for Medical
Intelligence. The dozens of pages of slides — titled “SARS-COV-2 Genome Analysis” and dated June 25, 2020 — were only released after FOIA litigation this week.
"The molecular biology capabilities of [Wuhan lab] &
genome assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was
a lab-engineered virus that was part of a bank of chimeric viruses in
Zhen-Li Shi's lab at WIV that escaped containment,” the medical
intelligence scientists assessed.
U.S. Right to Know, which filed the Freedom of Information requests, said
that the authors of the military analysis are not listed, but that they
obtained the slides in response to FOIA requests seeking assessments
authored by scientists Robert Greg Cutlip, John Hardham, and Jean-Paul
Chretien — all of whom had worked for the DIA’s NCMI.
Cutlip was employed by the DIA from 2010 to 2021 and also
worked for the Institute for Defence Analyses. He is currently listed as
the Director of Cybersecurity and Data Analytics Programs at Fairmont State University. Hardham’s LinkedIn page says that he is now a research director at the Center for Transboundary and Emerging Diseases at Zoetis.
Chretien’s LinkedIn page states that he was the chief of
pandemic warning at the Defense Department from August 2017 to August
2020, was at DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from August 2020 to January 2025, and has been at Renaissance Philanthropy since then. He wrote on LinkedIn last year that he was “leading DIA’s Pandemic Warning Team when COVID came to light.”
In the material released, the scientists noted that there
were “a large bank of Bat Coronaviruses” at the Wuhan lab. And the
analysis also noted that the Wuhan lab conducted experiments at lower
“biosafety level 2” conditions, and said this “would make an accidental
release” of an infectious bat coronavirus such as COVID-19 “more
likely.” The analysis pointed out that “Chinese labs have had a history
of virus escapes from BSL-2 laboratories.”
The analysis also cited statements that “bat lady” Shi
Zheng-Li had made in the past about the low biosafety conditions in
which she conducted her risky experiments.
“Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”
The influential scientific Proximal Origin
paper was published just over five years ago, scoffing at the Wuhan lab
leak hypothesis in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails
show Dr. Anthony Fauci, the now-former director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “prompted” the writing of that influential article.
Scientists who consulted with the U.S. government early in the pandemic in 2020 believed it was possible or even likely that COVID-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, yet emails indicate Fauci and Collins worked to shut the hypothesis down.
The Proximal Origin article was written by five
scientists: Kristian Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C.
Holmes, and Robert Garry. Andersen, a Scripps Research professor, wrote
to Nature magazine in February 2020 that he and other scientists had been “prompted” to do so by Fauci, Collins and Farrar.
The widely cited article published in Nature magazine in March 2020 was titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”
and contended that SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged through “natural
selection” and not through a lab leak, casting doubt on the possibility
that COVID-19 originated at a Wuhan lab.
The scientists wrote that “our analyses clearly show that
SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated
virus” and that “it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through
laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”
Multiple scientists who signed onto the letter had received millions of dollars in NIH funding.
Professor Richard Ebright told Just the News that the Proximal Origin
paper was “a product of scientific misconduct, up to and including
fraud." Ebright assessed that the paper “played a crucial role in
establishing the false narrative that science rules out a lab origin of
COVID” and noted that “formal requests for retraction of the paper have
been submitted.”
The military scientists shoot down Fauci-prompted “Proximal Origin”
NCMI experts Robert Greg Cutlip and Navy Cmdr. Jean-Paul
Chretien also wrote a working paper — published May 26, 2020 — which
poked holes in the claims made by the Fauci-allied scientists. It, too,
was not made public until years later.
The bombshell paper was titled “Critical Analysis of Anderson et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” and was only released when GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup, the chairman of the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, made it public in 2023.
The military scientists argued: “We highlight the features of SARS-CoV-2, noted by Anderson et al,
are consistent with longstanding and ongoing laboratory experiments;
the evidence Anderson et al. present does not lessen the plausibility of
laboratory origin.”
“We consider the evidence they [Andersen et al]
present and find that it does not prove that the virus arose naturally,”
the NCMI report stated. “In fact, the features of SARS-CoV-2 noted by
Anderson et al. are consistent with another scenario: that
SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a laboratory, by methods that leading
coronavirus researchers commonly use to investigate how the viruses
infect cells and cause disease, assess the potential for animal
coronaviruses to jump to humans, and develop drugs and vaccines.”
DIA and ODNI leadership kept reports under wraps
Multiple reports have also emerged that the NCMI analysis
pointing to a possible Wuhan lab leak was not allowed to be shared
outside of the DIA medical unit and was not included in broader analyses
by the U.S. intelligence community.
It was reported by The Australian
in 2023 that the 2020 papers by the NCMI scientists “pointing to a lab
leak were blocked from wide dissemination.” The outlet said that the DIA
paper critiquing the paper authored by Fauci-allied scientists “wasn’t
allowed to be released to the American public.”
The report added: “A source said DIA scientists, the
Lawrence Livermore National Lab, CIA, FBI’s WMD unit, and the Army
Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases all agreed COVID-19
was not a natural virus. But in 2021, NCMI was blocked by DIA leadership
from sharing info with the FBI.” A director at NCMI reportedly told the
scientists in July 2021: “You may not speak with the FBI WMD anymore.
They are off the reservation on this.”
The outlet also contended that Biden’s Office of the
Director of National Intelligence — led by Avril Haines — whitewashed or
ignored evidence from DIA scientists when putting together the summary
of what the U.S. intel community allegedly believed about COVID-19
origins. “They said the information was too technical to include in the
ODNI assessment,” an unnamed source told the outlet. “When the
scientists saw the final document, they wondered were did all their
edits go?”
It was then reported by The Wall Street Journal
in December of last year that the NCMI analysis “was at odds with the
assessment of their parent agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and
wasn’t incorporated in the report presented to Biden.” The WSJ said
that NCMI scientists — Hardham, Cutlip and Chretien — wrote the May
2020 lab leak paper but “weren’t allowed to circulate it outside of the
medical intelligence center.” The outlet also reported that NCMI
scientists “were instructed by a superior at the medical intelligence
center not to continue sharing their work with the FBI.” The WSJ also
reported that “the DIA Inspector General’s office opened an inquiry in
the spring into whether the scientists’ assessment was mishandled or
suppressed.”
Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who has since left his position as director of the DIA, spoke to the Senate in May 2022 about COVID-19’s origins, making no mention of the lab leak analyses within the DIA’s medical unit.
“Limited and fragmentary data has led the Intelligence
Community (IC) to maintain multiple theories on the origin of COVID-19,”
Berrier testified.
“Four elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low
confidence that the virus likely emerged from a natural interaction
between an animal infected with the virus and a human; one IC element
assesses with moderate confidence a laboratory origin is more likely and
three 38 other IC elements are unable to arrive at either conclusion
without additional information. All agencies agree the virus was not
developed as a biological weapon and most agree that it was not
genetically engineered.” Berrier joined
Booz Allen as the senior vice president in the company’s national
security business in June 2024. He did not respond to a request for
comment that Just the News made through his company.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., sent a December 2024 letter
to the DIA’s watchdog, telling him that “I am interested in the
findings of the OIG’s inquiry as to whether the NCMI’s findings were
appropriately included in briefings to President Biden and senior policy
makers.” The DIA inspector general did not respond to a request for
comment from Just the News.
By most accounts, the Biden Administration largely failed
or refused to shed further light on the origins of COVID-19.
Then-President Biden signed into law the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023”
and claimed that “my
administration will declassify and share as much of that information as
possible.” Little key information was released during his presidency,
and more and more reports are saying that important findings were
suppressed.
Then-DNI Avril Haines released an assessment
in August 2021 stating that at least one U.S. agency — revealed later
to be the FBI — had “moderate confidence” that COVID-19 came from the
lab, while four U.S. spy agencies and the National Intelligence Council
believed with “low confidence” that COVID-19 most likely had a natural
origin.
Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray later confirmed that the
FBI has long believed COVID-19 originated at a Chinese government lab.
ODNI released in October 2021 a declassified version of the FBI’s arguments in a section titled “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis.”
It was also revealed in 2023 that the Energy Department —
home to advanced research facilities such as the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratories — also believed with “low confidence” that the
coronavirus started at a Wuhan lab.
EcoHealth Alliance calls lab origin a "conspiracy theory"
Peter Daszak, the leader of the EcoHealth Alliance, steered
large sums of U.S. taxpayer dollars from NIH funding to the Wuhan lab
for bat virus research, a Government Accountability Office study showed. Science magazine noted that Daszak was a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan lab and its leader Shi Zhengli.
Daszak helped organize a February 2020 letter in The Lancet
which praised China’s response and called the lab leak a conspiracy
theory: “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this
outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around
its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories
suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin … Conspiracy
theories do nothing but create fear.”
Despite this, Fauci tried to argue to the BBC in 2022 that Daszak’s letter did not dismiss the lab leak hypothesis.
EcoHealth Alliance had proposed the creation at the Wuhan lab of a virus with features — such as a furin cleavage site — strikingly similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2. It was revealed by The Intercept
that EcoHealth had sought funding from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency for this project in 2018, but when the funding
was rejected it appears the Wuhan lab moved forward anyway, just a year
ahead of the first emergence of COVID-19.
Gabbard: "Bipartisan frustration"
A host of U.S. intelligence agencies still remain on the sidelines in the coronavirus origins debate.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said
during her Senate confirmation in January that many senators had
“expressed bipartisan frustration about recent intelligence failures and
the lack of responsiveness to your requests for information” including
related to “failures to identify the source of the COVID.” Gabbard announced
on Tuesday the creation of the Director’s Initiatives Group which has
been “reviewing documents for potential declassification — including
information related to COVID-19 origins.”
"The DNI is dedicated to declassifying COVID-19 origins documents from across the IC," a spokesperson for Gabbard told Just the News. "Her new Director's Initiative's Group will lead the charge. More coming soon."
The CIA, now under Director John Ratcliffe, is walking a
fine line. CBS News reported that the "CIA now says COVID most likely
originated from a lab leak but has 'low confidence' in its assessment."
He revealed
in January that "CIA assesses with low confidence that a
research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a
natural origin” and at the same time, "that CIA continues to assess that
both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19
pandemic remain plausible."
Ratcliffe had testified
to Congress in 2023 that the CIA and other spy agencies had enough
evidence to get off the fence and to join the FBI and Energy Department
in concluding that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated at the Wuhan lab,
and hinted that the U.S. intelligence community was holding back because
of the significant ramifications such public conclusions would have for
the U.S.-China relationship. Ratcliffe argued at the time that “a lab
leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by
science, and by common sense."
The German Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND,
reportedly also concluded that it was very likely that the pandemic
emerged as an accidental lab release from the Wuhan lab, according to
German news reports last month, but the BND was blocked from sharing their conclusions with the world.
“The current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegseth all promised before confirmation to declassify and
release intelligence on the origin of COVID-19, as required by the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, but they have not yet done so. They need to move rapidly to do so,” Professor Ebright told Just the News. “And Avril Haines needs to be prosecuted — criminally prosecuted — for violating the law.”
