Biden Officials Think Lab Leak ‘At Least as Credible’ a Theory as Natural Origins, CNN Reports

A new report says senior officials in the Biden administration believe that the covid-19 lab leak theory is “at least as credible” as the natural origins possibility.

CNN reported Friday night that the lab leak theory “is being seriously considered by top Biden officials,” though the intel community “remains firmly divided” right now on what the origins of the virus really are.

The intelligence community has also been consulting with outside experts and examining raw information that may have been missed— including information the State Department had collected in the Trump administration — and analyzing more open source information, such as peer reviewed studies out of China, said a source with knowledge of the probe.

People familiar with the progress of the review, however, said the intelligence community as a whole is still in much the same place it was when Biden ordered his review in late May: Two agencies assess with low to moderate confidence that the virus originated naturally, while one assesses with the same lukewarm confidence that it escaped from a lab.

One of CNN’s sources told them there likely won’t be “a definitive answer as to Covid’s origins at the end of the 90-day review— instead, any final assessment will likely lay out both theories and evaluate their pros and cons.”

CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand spoke with Erin Burnett on air about the report and said, “It is a shift, especially from last year, when the lab leak theory… was considered pretty outlandish and kind of a conspiracy theory by many on the left.”

“Senior Biden administration officials are taking this possibility very seriously,” she continued.

Bertrand added that they don’t believe the virus was “engineered as a bioweapon” deliberately but that it escaped from the lab. “Right now what we’re hearing is that that biological weapon theory has pretty much been debunked by the intel community.”

You can watch above, via CNN.