Whistleblower claims CIA paid off analysts to reject COVID-19 lab-leak theory: 'Biggest COVID coverup yet'

The Central Intelligence Agency bribed analysts who concluded the COVID-19 pandemic originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, a new whistleblower has alleged.

The explosive allegation was disclosed in a letter that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R) and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R) sent CIA Director William Burns on Tuesday.

The lawmakers explained that a CIA analyst, described as a "multi-decade, senior-level" official, testified that CIA leaders paid off six agency analysts who had concluded the pandemic originated through a lab leak — animal-to-human transmission.

"According to the whistleblower, the Agency assigned seven officers to a COVID Discovery Team (Team). The Team consisted of multi-disciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise," the lawmakers wrote. "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," they explained.

"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," the lawmakers said.

The claims are significant because the allegations both contradict and explain a declassified report the director of national intelligence released in June. That report said of the CIA's investigation:

The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.

That report explained the National Intelligence Council and four other intelligence agencies believe COVID originated from animal-to-human transmission, while the Energy Department and FBI believe "a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely cause."

Turner and Wenstrup, therefore, demanded Burns turn over all documents related to the CIA's investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic by Sept. 26.

Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has relentlessly pursued the truth of the pandemic and the U.S. government's role in it, called the new whistleblower allegations the "biggest COVID coverup yet."

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