NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

Former intelligence officers are criticizing the declassified report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that continues to advertise the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly emerged naturally from a wild animal host and isn't linked to a authorities analysis laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The report, made public by DNI Avril Haines on June 23, was written by an analyst with the National Intelligence Council.

The report concludes that the council and 4 different U.S. intelligence companies “assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor.”

Two different companies, the Energy Department intelligence workplace and the FBI, say they consider the proof most definitely suggests COVID-19 originated from a “laboratory-associated incident,” the report mentioned.

The CIA, the lead civilian U.S. intelligence company, mentioned it couldn't decide the origin of the COVID pandemic as a result of the 2 theories – lab leak and animal origin – depend on “significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting,” the report states.

As for the Chinese military-linked Wuhan Institute of Virology, the DNI report states that regardless of a number of employees coming down with diseases just like COVID within the fall of 2019, intelligence companies don't consider the diseases level to a laboratory-origin illness outbreak.

“The [intelligence community] continues to assess that this information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins because the researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19,” the report mentioned.

China’s authorities has sharply denounced the lab-leak speculation and critics who say the virus started from an contaminated wild animal market in Wuhan level to the joint World Health Organization-China investigative report revealed in 2021.

The report states that “more than 80,000 wildlife, livestock and poultry samples were collected from 31 provinces in China and no positive result was identified for SARS-CoV-2 antibody or nucleic acid before and after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China.”

“Through extensive testing of animal products in the Huanan market, no evidence of animal infections was found,” the report mentioned.

Dany Shahom, a former army intelligence officer with the Israeli Defense Forces who studied China’s organic weapons applications, mentioned the DNI report seems to be intentionally agnostic concerning the virus origin, and appeared designed to assist the Biden administration’s new coverage of engagement and lowered tensions towards China.

Now a researcher on the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University in Israel, Mr. Shahom was one of many first specialists in January 2020 to lift the suggestion that the pandemic virus could have emerged from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, whether or not by accident or on objective. Scientific opinion is sharply divided, however to date no animal host has been credibly recognized as a potential supply for the coronavirus that might go on to kill tens of millions all over the world.

“An animal — other than laboratory animals — hosting a virus that could be regarded as the direct progenitor of the pandemic virus was not found, and likely does not exist,” he advised Inside the Ring.

Published findings regarding the potential emergence from non-laboratory animals are fragmentary, whereas different findings regarding contaminated lab animals within the Wuhan Institute of Virology “are considerably more sound,” he mentioned.

Also, improperly dealt with lab animals contaminated with the virus could have been the supply of each indoor or out of doors COVID contagion, he mentioned.

Mr. Shahom mentioned a earlier, non-research-related unintended laboratory leak happened on the WIV in August 2019, and led the laboratory to erase crucial virological information.

“The concealed viruses could well include unfamiliar intermediate strains ranging genomically between the South China mine-isolated viruses, and the initial pandemic virus,” he mentioned.

Mr. Shahom additionally mentioned he believes the Wunah researchers had been additionally engaged in genetically engineering human-oriented virus strains created via untraceable “gain-of-function” lab work.

“A wealth of additional indirect evidence leads to the conclusion that an accidental lab leak was a most plausible scenario,” he mentioned.

Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence director, mentioned the DNI report seems to be little greater than a compilation of assessments from different intelligence companies.

“Taxpayers really have to ask themselves why so many millions are being spent on salaries of so-called senior intelligence executives who provide no value-added information to such an important topic,” Capt. Fanell mentioned.

“Besides adding no new information, the DNI appears more interested in equity than in facts. The report provides no facts that support the ‘wet market’ theory other than what was reported in Chinese Communist Party propaganda media outlets.”

Redacted classification markings within the DNI report seem to have been an effort by ODNI employees to “magically make this previously highly classified report as unclassified,” he mentioned.

“Again, American taxpayers must wonder why so many millions are being spent for such poor performance,” Capt. Fanell mentioned.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu mentioned many forces within the United States have renewed hypothesis concerning the COVID virus origin, once more pointing to the joint WHO-China mission that concluded the laboratory origin principle was dominated “extremely unlikely.”

“Certain parties should stop rehashing the ‘lab leak’ narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origins-tracing,” Mr. Liu advised Inside the Ring.

Ken deGraffenreid, former deputy nationwide counterintelligence govt, singled out the CIA for its failure to supply a definitive conclusion.

“This is the CIA again claiming to be the oracle of everything,” he mentioned. “But the CIA, despite having a large number of employees, is not a place with a lot of expertise in these things. They say they are, but they’re not.”

Mr. deGraffenreid, who was additionally White House National Security Council intelligence director throughout the Reagan administration, mentioned regardless of proof within the Nineteen Seventies linking the Soviet Union to the usage of toxin weapons in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, the CIA rejected the findings, primarily based mostly on a political bias amongst analysts to assist Moscow.

“We had conclusive proof the Soviets were doing that, but the CIA said it wasn’t toxin weapons but bee droppings,” he mentioned. “They have no expertise and are bureaucrats, mainly skilled at waging bureaucratic warfare.”

A State Department reality sheet revealed in 2005 acknowledged that the U.S. authorities “officially found that toxin weapons had been used in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan.”

Document reveals Chinese order to destroy early virus samples

Chinese well being authorities ordered the destruction of the primary samples of the virus that causes COVID-19  collected early within the illness outbreak, in line with a Chinese authorities doc.

The lack of early samples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, hampered early efforts to answer the coronavirus pandemic. The lacking samples additionally had been cited by U.S. intelligence companies as one motive why it has been so troublesome to establish the origin of the pandemic.

The Jan. 3, 2020 inner doc, despatched from China’s National Health Commission, ordered all nationwide laboratories concerned in finding out the virus to chorus from sharing samples or publishing details about the virus with out authorities permission.

The doc was obtained from the State Department by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit investigative public well being analysis and journalism group, via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Any Chinese lab that held samples of the virus behind what it mentioned was the “Wuhan pneumonia” had been directed to share them with designated establishments, or to destroy the samples “on the spot.” The order warned that folks and establishments that did not comply would face harsh therapy.

“No institution or individual may release any relevant information to the outside world without authorization,” the doc states.

Additionally, in line with the doc, scientists weren't allowed to speak with the general public concerning their analysis findings on the virus with out authorities approval.

The destruction of early virus samples and Chinese authorities’s refusal to share data concerning its virus analysis have prevented an entire understanding of the pandemic and is required by well being specialists to forestall future pandemics.

NDAA modification would kill Navy drag queen program

Rep. Jim Banks is claiming victory in efforts to halt the Navy’s controversial “digital ambassador program” that included an active-duty sailor posing as a drag queen in a marketing campaign to recruit new personnel.

The House Armed Services Committee final week handed an modification to the National Defense Authorization Act draft invoice sponsored by the Indiana Republican addressing the controversy. The House model of the invoice now says Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro should halt all actions of the digital ambassador program and notify Congress of all sailors named as ambassadors beneath this system.

Mr. Banks mentioned in an announcement that after he first uncovered this system, the Navy denied {that a} sailor often known as “Harpy Daniels” was linked to this system. The service later acknowledged that the sailor was a part of this system geared toward boosting naval recruitment.

As reported on this house May 4, the drag queen is self-described homosexual sailor Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley who introduced in November on social media that he was a part of the Navy outreach program to encourage extra younger individuals to enlist.

Mr. Banks, who chairs the House Armed Services’ army personnel subcommittee, final month despatched a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin opposing the usage of drag queens for recruitment.

“Secretary Austin claimed that the Biden [Department of Defense] does not support drag shows. If he was testifying honestly then he has an obligation to discipline the officials who decided that sexually explicit content should be featured in the Navy’s Digital Ambassador program,” Mr. Banks mentioned within the letter.

“There’s no doubt that Biden appointees are behind the Pentagon’s hard-left turn and Republicans on the Armed Services Committee will continue to question Secretary Austin about the divisive and woke insanity that’s helped drive recruitment to a historic low.”

Mr. Austin acknowledged throughout a committee listening to in March that “drag shows are not something that the Department of Defense supports or funds.”

— Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter at @BillGertz.

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