VIRAL NEWS

New Trump CIA Chief Declassifies COVID ‘Lab Leak’ Assessment

CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered the release of the report just days after his confirmation.

In one of his first acts as Donald Trump’s CIA director, John Ratcliffe had the agency publish an assessment backing the once relatively fringe theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began with an accidental leak at a research lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Ratcliffe’s involvement in the release was confirmed by an official to The New York Times, despite others emphasizing that drafting of the new assessment had been commissioned under the Biden administration. The agency says it only has “low confidence” in this theory, per the Times, and believes the alternative—that the virus emerged naturally in a Wuhan wet market—is still plausible, albeit perhaps less so. No new evidence was cited in the report; no concrete proof tying the lab to the pandemic has not been found, though Ratcliffe has said he supports this origin story. Regardless, it seems clear the development could be useful for Trump in his dealings with China, which he’s long threatened with major tariffs and other reprisals as a way of getting them to the negotiating table.