FBI ‘not allowed to brief Biden’ on Covid lab leak theory

The FBI was excluded from a secret intelligence briefing with President Biden to discuss the origins of the Covid-19 virus after concluding that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak, it is claimed.

In May 2021 the White House ordered multiple intelligence agencies and national laboratories to investigate whether the virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory or was transmitted from an animal to a human — as argued by most scientists at the time.

A few months later, the classified findings of the investigation were organised by the National Intelligence Council and presented to Biden. The dominant view, shared by four agencies, was that the pandemic had occurred naturally. Only the FBI concluded with “moderate confidence” that a lab leak was likely to have caused it.

No FBI official was invited to the White House meeting in August 2021 to argue their case as Biden met the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, and two of her senior analysts to review the evidence.

“Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Jason Bannan, a former FBI scientist, told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

“I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”

• Why is the FBI endorsing the Covid lab leak theory now?

Bannan, a microbiologist, joined the FBI after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and spent much of the pandemic investigating the virus’s origins.

A spokesperson for Haines told the Journal the differing views of the intelligence community were fairly represented in the briefing and that it was not standard practice to invite representatives from each agency.

The intelligence agencies and laboratories tasked with investigating the origins of Covid-19 — from the CIA to the energy department — were given 90 days to review their evidence and to organise their findings, despite a lack of co-operation from China.

The final report, which was declassified in June last year after a vote in Congress, said no evidence had been found that the pandemic stemmed from a lab leak but it did not rule out the possibility that the virus was man-made.

This reflected the divided views of the US intelligence community. Four agencies, including the CIA, said the virus transferred from animals to humans; the FBI and the energy department advocated for the lab leak theory, although the latter made its judgment with “low confidence”.

Bannan has urged all those involved in the review to reassess their evidence. “What ended up on the intelligence community’s cutting-room floor needs to be re-examined,” he said.

This included one genomic analysis — conducted by three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, which monitors global health threats to US soldiers on behalf of the Pentagon — that concluded the Covid-19 virus had been created in a laboratory.

The scientists were later ordered by a superior not to share their findings with the FBI, according to The Australian newspaper. Their research was not included in the final intelligence report given to Biden in August 2021. Nor were their proposed edits accepted.

The origins of Covid-19 remain a divisive topic. Scientists and officials continue to be scrutinised in Congress, and several reports have been released over the past three years. A Republican-controlled committee on Covid-19 said this month that it “likely emerged because of a laboratory or research-related accident”.

China has rejected the lab leak theory and insisted the pandemic occurred naturally.