HQ Team
September 14, 2023: The Central Intelligence Agency offered bribes to six analysts to change their position on COVID-19’s origins from a lab leak theory in China to zoonotic origins, according to the Select Subcommittee on Corona Pandemic, — an allegation which CIA rejected.
“The staff of the subcommittee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have heard testimony from a whistleblower alleging that the CIA offered six analysts significant monetary incentives to change their position on COVID-19’s origin,” according to a statement from the subcommittee.
“The whistleblower, who presents as a highly credible senior-level CIA officer, alleges that of the seven members assigned to the CIA team tasked with analyzing COVID-19 origins, six officers concluded that the virus likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China.
“The CIA, then, however, allegedly offered financial incentives to six of the experts involved in the investigation to change their conclusion in favour of a zoonotic origin.”
CIA urged to turn in all documents
Representative Brad Wenstrup (R–OH), who chairs the House of Representatives’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and Representative Mike Turner (R–OH), who chairs the intelligence panel, after hearing the whistleblower’s allegations requested the CIA to turn in all documents and communications related to the viruses’ origins to the panel “immediately.”
“The Chairmen additionally request that former CIA COO Andrew Makridis appear for a voluntary transcribed interview on September 26, 2023. Any improper influence exerted by the CIA will be investigated to ensure accountability from the intelligence community.”
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 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 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,” Mr Wenstrup and Turner wrote in the statement.
‘Didn’t pay analysts’
In response to emailed questions from the journal Science, CIA Director of Public Affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp denied the accusations.
“At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them. We will keep our Congressional oversight committees appropriately informed,” she wrote in the agency’s statement.
The origins of the COVID-19 virus still remain a mystery.
The WHO’s scientific advisors have called on China in March 2023, to release all data relating to the COVID-19 origins after a report hinted at the possibility of raccoon dogs as the first source of the virus.
The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens (SAGO), an advisory group, will continue to evaluate any scientific data shared by Chinese and other researchers from anywhere in the world, according to a WHO statement.
No raccoons
According to China, of the 1,380 samples collected from the environment and animals within the market in early 2020, 73 of the 923 environmental samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. No virus was detected in 457 animal samples tested.
The animal samples included animal bodies, frozen animal carcasses and animal products, and stray animals around the market, covering 18 species. Raccoon dogs were not among the animals tested.
Most of the US intelligence agencies believe that the transmission originated from infected animals to humans. The Department of Energy and the FBI have leaned toward the lab leak theory.
