The CIA allegedly offered officials investigating the origins of COVID-19 a “significant monetary incentive” to say they were “unable to determine” where the virus started instead of saying it originated out of a Wuhan lab leak, an agency whistleblower reportedly told Congress.
House Coronavirus Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner sent letters to the CIA and a former official over the whistleblower testimony, Fox News Digital reported.
“The Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have received new and concerning whistleblower testimony regarding the Agency’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19,” Wenstrup and Turner wrote to CIA Director William Burns Tuesday.
“A multi-decade, senior-level, current Agency officer has come forward to provide information to the Committees regarding the Agency’s analysis into the origins of COVID-19,” they wrote. “According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed that intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.”
“The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the one officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis,” the added. “The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.”
This was a breaking news story. The details were periodically updated as more information became available.
