Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter May 16 to President Biden asking him to order a government-wide investigation into the origin of the New Coronavirus.
In the letter, Nunes said Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are concerned about circumstantial evidence that the virus may have been leaked from the Wuhan laboratory, which has received millions of dollars in funding from the U.S. government.
Nunes wrote: “During the course of our investigation, a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence has been uncovered that supports the theory that the laboratory leak may have been the origin of COVID-19.” Therefore “a thorough review of this possibility is critical, particularly in light of the Chinese government’s obstruction of multilateral bio-forensic investigations and the destruction of important evidence.”
Nunes also quoted U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken as saying, “If we want to prevent this outbreak from happening again as much as possible and ensure that we can build a stronger global health security system that will allow us to prevent, detect and mitigate future pandemics, we need to understand exactly what happened. “
Nunes also sent a letter to Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, pointing out the shortcomings in U.S. intelligence on the new coronavirus, while there are allegations that: the intelligence community has suppressed dissenting views on the source of this virus “and that the intelligence community relies on outside experts whose interests have not been disclosed.”
As the Republican representative on the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes wrote, “As members of Congress charged with overseeing the U.S. intelligence agencies, we believe the intelligence agencies have failed to provide policymakers, with timely reports and analysis.”
“In addition, the intelligence community has not been forthcoming about exactly what kind of processing was done in releasing early statements about the origin of the virus, and these seemingly authoritative conclusions have now been called into question,” the letter reads, “raising questions about the validity of the intelligence community’s early judgments, and the COVID-19 analysis casts doubt on the veracity of the report.”
A copy of the letter to Haynes was sent to the heads of 11 intelligence agencies. Nunes raised numerous questions and asked for additional documents to be made public, including a request for a copy of the intelligence report on the origins of the pandemic, which had not previously been provided to the Intelligence Committee.
Haynes, the U.S. director of national intelligence, had said on April 15 that the intelligence community considered a laboratory accident, one of two plausible scenarios for a virus release.
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