New Covid Admission Highlights Intelligence Community Attack on Trump

Fauci worked behind the scenes to undercut Trump as the Intelligence Community coordinated to discredit Trump's Lab Leak disclosure

John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence recently acknowledged that he had discovered in May 2020 that our intelligence community was aware from the beginning that Covid originated from a laboratory. Ratcliffe’s statement is important because it directly contradicts the intelligence community's Covid origin statement that was issued (for two very specific reasons) on April 30, 2020.

Ratcliffe’s comments came during a Heritage Presentation on Holding China Accountable for their role in the Covid pandemic. During the presentation Ratcliffe recalled that one week before formally assuming the position of DNI in May 2020, the intelligence community released a statement claiming to back the so-called “scientific consensus” that Covid was naturally occurring.

After Ratcliffe formally assumed the position of DNI he requested to see the underlying intelligence that backed the Intelligence Community’s assessment. However, upon review of the intelligence, Ratcliffe was deeply surprised to discover that “the vast preponderance of [the intelligence] said exactly the opposite…it pointed toward this being a research-related incident, not naturally occurring."

Ratcliffe told the audience that the CIA has still not acknowledged a Lab Leak origin for Covid and seemed to strongly indicate that none of this was done in error:

“The notion that some four and a half years later, [the CIA] is not capable of making an assessment [on COVID’s origins] with some degree of confidence...reflects that there are political considerations and financial considerations that have prevented that. But that's not a good reason not to be honest and forthright with the American people and with the rest of the world.”

Ratcliffe’s comments (54:05 - 55:31) are very much worth the watch.

Ratcliffe is right. We know that the CIA worked to falsely reshape the debate on the origin of Covid to point away from a lab leak and towards a natural origin. A senior-level CIA officer even told Congress that the Chief Operating Officer of the CIA provided financial inducements to six CIA analysts to change their minds on the origin question. Originally, the six analysts had concluded that Covid came out of a lab but they later amended their conclusion to say that the origin could not be determined.

Why did this happen and what was driving the pressure on the analysts to reverse their opinions? Why was it so important for the CIA – and for the wider intelligence community – to cover up the truth about Covid?

Further questions are raised by an April 2020 internal memo from the State Department that was released by US Right To Know. That early memo, which was really a formal analysis, stated that out of five possible origins for Covid, a lab leak was by far the most likely.

The authors complained that "The most logical place to investigate the virus origin [the Wuhan Institute of Virology] has been completely sealed off from outside inquiry by the CCP. A gag order to both places was issued on 1/01/2020, and a Major General from the PLA took over the WIV since early Jan."

The early analysis by the State Department didn’t pull any punches. It concluded that a leak from the Wuhan Lab almost certainly caused the pandemic. The memo also noted that "all other possible places of virus's origin have been proven false" and stated that "all other proposed theories are likely to be a decoy to prevent inquiry to WCDC [China’s CDC] and WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology]." 

This information from the State Department, along with their conclusion of a lab leak, should have blown apart the Natural Origin Narrative just as it was forming. But it seems that the Intelligence Community wouldn’t allow that to happen. Why do we say this? Because it appears that the Intelligence Community intentionally derailed the State Department’s early April 2020 conclusion before it could even become public.

As we’ll see, they did so through a statement issued through then-Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell's office on April 30, 2020. But there’s also a subplot.

In the first four months of the Covid Pandemic there was a quiet battle raging behind the scenes regarding the origins of covid. The battle pitted Trump and a few members of his administration against most of the Intelligence Community, many of Trump’s own advisors - and Anthony Fauci.

On December 28, 2019, just as the pandemic took off, a Chinese scientist sought to publish the genetic profile of the coronavirus a full two weeks before China formally released the sequence. Shockingly, Fauci’s National Institute of Health (NIH) informed the Chinese virologist that her submission lacked certain required technical information and would be deleted if this data was not provided. The Chinese virologist, who was certainly under pressure from China’s communist government, never responded to NIH and the valuable sequence was inexplicably deleted.

As a result of NIH’s “deletion,” Covid’s genetic sequence was not made public until January 11, 2020 - and wasn’t published on NIH’s GenBank site until the next day, Jan 12th. Amazingly, it was Eddie Holmes of Proximal Origin fame who posted the sequence information - and he was lauded by Wellcome Trust’s Jeremy Farrar for doing so. 

Left unsaid was a later admission from Holmes that he delayed releasing the information at the request of the Chinese government. Holmes actually had the full sequence back on January 5, 2020, but was instructed by China not to release the sequence until January 11th.

We’ve never gotten a convincing answer as to why NIH deleted the sequence without analysis but the deletion by NIH conveniently gave China the same delay that they were demanding from Holmes. Meanwhile, crucial time - and lives - were lost in those early days.

The day after Holmes posted the Covid sequence, on January 13th, Fauci and Moderna quietly agreed to go ahead with manufacturing of the so-called mRNA Covid vaccines on a mass scale - despite claims from the World Health Organization that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”

A few weeks later, on February 1, 2020, Holmes would famously tell Farrar and the rest of Fauci's secret teleconference group that he was “80 percent sure the virus came out of a lab.” 

As you ponder the implications from Fauci’s arrangement with Moderna and his internal plans of Covid Origin deception, recall that Fauci was publicly claiming in February 2020 that the risk from Covid was “minuscule”, telling people to skip masks and just wash their hands. According to Fauci, the flu was a much bigger risk than was Covid.

As all of this was going on, the Intelligence Community was being pushed for answers. We now know that the FBI was told at the onset that Covid came from a lab leak.These claims were being treated seriously by the FBI. So much so that the FBI created a new task force and was investigating EcoHealth as being the entity behind the creation of the Covid virus. The task force's formal investigation of EcoHealth began no later than early April - but more likely in March 2020.

This information came from Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist, who was interviewed by the FBI’s task force in April and May of 2020 to help the FBI understand the intricate details contained within the EcoHealth work that was funded by Fauci and the NIH.

For reasons that still remain unknown, the FBI’s task force would be disbanded in late May or June 2020.

As the FBI was investigating EcoHealth, an internal State Department analysis was quietly drafted regarding the possible origins for Covid. This analysis concluded that a leak from the Wuhan Lab was highly likely to have caused the Covid pandemic. The memo also noted that "all other proposed theories are likely to be a decoy." 

As we noted at the outset, the State Department memo should have destroyed the Natural Origin Narrative. But as we’ll see, Fauci, with direct help from the Intelligence Community, kept the natural Origin narrative alive and made any discussion of a lab leak impossible.

On April 7th, 2020, Trump sent a tweet stating “The WHO really blew it” and said he would be looking into their actions. Trump was right about the World Health Organization. The first WHO report claimed that “COVID-19 is a zoonotic virus” – a natural virus that jumped from animals to humans at the Wuhan seafood market. The possibility of a lab leak wasn’t even mentioned. It was a negotiated fabrication designed to appease China. The WHO’s report also aligned with Fauci’s Natural Origin narrative. 

On the same day of Trump’s tweet, then-acting DNI Richard Grenell “convened a review of intelligence officials on April 7 to see whether the agencies could reach a consensus. The officials determined that at least so far, they could not.” It’s unclear if Trump’s tweet prompted the sudden review, but the word “consensus” is important. Because, as we noted earlier, the FBI was already aware a lab leak was likely and was actively investigating EcoHealth in real time.

Although the Intelligence Community refused to provide a consensus opinion, Trump began to hint more strongly at a leak from the Wuhan Lab. Indeed, on April 15th, 2020, in response to a question from John Roberts, Trump seemed to suggest that Covid had come from a Chinese Lab.

Two days later, on April 17th, Trump told reporters that in regards to a lab leak, “We’re looking at it, a lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense. … There is a lot of investigation going on and we’re going to find out." But it was here that Fauci suddenly jumped into the conversation, claiming that Covid had a natural origin - and Fauci cited the fraudulent Proximal Origin paper as proof of his claim. 

Fauci even pretended that he didn’t know who the authors were - despite having directed them to write it. It was a crucially deceptive moment in the creation of the Natural Origin narrative.

Despite Fauci’s public deception, or perhaps because of it, Trump abruptly cut all funding to EcoHealth on April 26, 2020. But Fauci undercut Trump a few months later by quietly providing a whole new level of funding to EcoHealth. 

Against this dueling backdrop, another critical event occurred. An April 28, 2020, article suddenly reported on the State Department memo, noting that “A Wuhan laboratory is the “most likely” source of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a U.S. government analysis.” The article also included direct quotes from the then non-public State Department memo. 

The article should have discredited the Natural Origin Narrative before it took hold. But that possibility was almost immediately derailed by the Intelligence Community. 

Recall that on April 7th, Grenell had asked the IC for a statement on the Origin of Covid. In an April 29, 2020 email Acting DNI Grenell followed up on his request, asking “who is writing the IC wide statement that [REDACTED] suggested we do in the oval?” “We agreed to write a statement for the IC to all sign and it would say we are down to two options for Covid.”

The statement from the Intelligence Community was formally issued the next day (April 30, 2020) by Acting DNI Grenell. The Intelligence Community statement on the Origins of Covid made the critical claim that "The Intelligence Community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified." 

The statement by the Intelligence Community was an outright lie. But there was also another problem. A big one.

It appears that nobody, including Grenell, told Trump that the Intelligence Community’s assessment was being released or what it would even say. We know this because Trump was totally blinded-sided by its release during a live press conference (see 54:23 mark) on the evening of April 30th:

Fox News’ John Roberts: You said a moment ago you’ll soon have information on where this virus originated. The Director of National Intelligence today put out a statement saying that they believe it was naturally occurring and was not man-made.

Trump: Who was that? Who was it that said that?

Roberts: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Trump: Yeah, but who in particular? Who was the man who made that statement?

Roberts: It was a statement by the ODNI.

Trump: Oh, he would know that? Huh. National Intelligence…

Roberts: That would be your Director of National Intelligence... The statement was just put out under the office of the DNI.

Trump: Okay. We’ll see. I have to see the statement. I just haven’t seen it.

Despite the ensuing media ridicule, towards the end of the clip Trump confirmed that he’d personally seen evidence that Covid originated at the Wuhan lab (55:14-55:24 & 1:01:11-1:01:19):

Roberts: Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus?

Trump: Yes I have. Yes I have.

…

Roberts: What gives you a high degree of confidence that this originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Trump: I can't tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.

Although Trump publicly stated that he’d seen evidence that Covid originated at the Wuhan lab, his claims were totally discredited in real time and the media had a field day. And just as the Intelligence Community knew it would, their statement was then used to push back on any and all Lab Leak theories.

The IC’s statement also completely buried any further reporting on the State Department memo. The media would continue to use the Intelligence Community statement as proof that Covid had a natural origin for the next year. 

The release of the Intelligence Community statement was the moment Fauci was waiting for. A few days later, during a lengthy and splashy May 4th Interview with National Geographic, Fauci claimed there was “No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab.” Fauci even told National Geographic that Covid “could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated… everything strongly indicates that [the virus] evolved in nature.” 

Fauci also completely dismissed the idea of an accidental escape from a lab. Which is particularly notable, because just three months earlier four NIH-funded scientists privately told Fauci the virus almost certainly came from a lab.

The media celebrated Fauci for “standing up” to Trump. Although Trump has been vindicated and most now view Fauci as a fraud, Fauci’s subterfuge worked at the time. It became almost impossible to discuss any theory that deviated from a Natural Origin. Scientists bent the knee to Fauci and the deep pockets of the NIH. Trump was castigated by the media. Censorship was rampant. And the DNI’s Intelligence Community statement on the Origins of Covid helped to make it all possible.

We now know with hindsight that every assertion with the Intelligence Community Statement is false. We have proof that Covid was both man-made and genetically modified. We know Covid came from the Wuhan Lab. Now we have direct confirmation from Ratcliffe that the Intelligence Community not only had no evidence to back their April 30th statement, the evidence they possessed actually said the exact opposite.

As we suggested earlier in this post, Trump had been building towards a definitive statement on a Lab Leak - and it appears that someone knew well in advance what Trump intended to say and had taken steps to counter him.

Authors’ Note: We’ve been generally favorably disposed towards Grenell and it’s entirely possible that Grenell was tricked by the Intelligence Community. It’s also possible that he was simply naive regarding the impact from the language in the statement - and the impact from its timing. But we struggle to explain why Grenell left Trump exposed and totally unprepared for the release of the Intelligence Community Statement directly in front of a major press conference.