The US Department of Energy has assessed that the Covid-19 pandemic\u2002most likely came from a laboratory leak in China, according to a newly updated classified intelligence report.
\nTwo sources said that the Department of Energy assessed in the intelligence report that it had \u201clow confidence\u201d the Covid-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan.
\nIntelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough or is too fragmented to make a more definitive analytic judgment or that there is not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion.
\nThe latest assessment further adds to the divide in the US government over whether the Covid-19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab leak or whether it emerged naturally. The various intelligence agencies have been split on the matter for years. In 2021, the intelligence community declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans naturally in the wild, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident.
\nThree other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, the report said.
\nThe Wall Street Journal\u2002first reported on the new assessment from the Department of Energy. A senior US intelligence official told the Journal that the update to the intelligence assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with experts outside government.
\nA Department of Energy spokesperson told CNN in a statement: \u201cThe Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.\u201d
\nThe Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is one of 18 government agencies that make up the intelligence community, which are under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
\nThe Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
\n\u2018Not a definitive answer\u2019
\nNational security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d on Sunday that the intelligence community remains divided on the matter, while noting that President Joe Biden has put resources into getting to the bottom of the origin question.
\n\u201cRight now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,\u201d Sullivan told CNN\u2019s Dana Bash. \u201cSome elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don\u2019t have enough information to be sure.\u201d
\nSullivan said Biden had directed the national laboratories, which are part of the Department of Energy, to be brought into the assessment.
\nIn May 2020, researchers at the government-backed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory issued a classified report\u2002that found it was possible that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, which came at a time when that line of inquiry was considered taboo.
\nEnter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter.
\nThe US began exploring the possibility that Covid-19 spread in a laboratory as early as April 2020, though the intelligence community has noted repeatedly that a lack of cooperation from Beijing has made it difficult to get to the bottom of the question.
\nRepublicans react
\nThe latest intelligence assessment was provided to Congress as Republicans on Capitol Hill have been pushing for further investigation into the lab leak theory, while accusing the Biden administration of playing down its possibility.
\nHouse Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul said Sunday he was \u201cpleased\u201d that the Department of Energy \u201chas finally reached the same conclusion that I had already come to.\u201d
\n\u201cI have requested a full and thorough briefing from the administration on this report and the evidence behind it,\u201d the Texas Republican said in a statement.
\nMcCaul in his statement referred to a 2021 report he had released as ranking member of the Foreign Affairs panel, which \u201cfound a preponderance of the evidence proved\u201d that the pandemic originated with a leak from the Wuhan lab.
\nThe chairman called on the Biden administration to publicly concur with that conclusion.
\n\u201cIt is critical the administration also begin to work immediately with our partners and allies around the world to both hold the (Chinese Communist Party) accountable and to put in place updated international regulations to ensure something like this cannot happen again,\u201d McCaul said.
\nRepublican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska on Sunday called for public hearings following the disclosure of the Department of Energy assessment.
\n\u201cWe need to do extensive hearings. I hope our Democratic colleagues in the Congress can support that. I know the Republicans in the House are certainly supportive of that,\u201d the Senate Armed Services Committee member said on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d
\n\u201cThink about what just happened over the last three years, one of the biggest pandemics in a century. A lot of evidence that it\u2019s coming from the Chinese,\u201d Sullivan said.
\nA spokesperson for House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement that the committee was \u201creviewing the classified information provided\u201d by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a letter requesting information earlier this month.
\nOne of the sources said that the new assessment from the Department of Energy is similar to information from a House Republican Intelligence Committee report released last year on the origins of the virus.<\/p>\n
Cnn<\/p>\n
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