Report: Biden administration suppressed intel officials' views on COVID-19 lab leak theory.

According to sources, members of the U.S. intelligence community who held the belief that the coronavirus may have originated from a lab leak in China were restricted from expressing their views and research to the broader intelligence community, as per FBI and other government officials privy to the Biden administration's internal pandemic response efforts.

The Biden administration initially believed that COVID-19 most likely originated organically in Wuhan, China, and was transferred to humans from infected animals due to the country's under-regulated and extensive wildlife trade. However, this view was opposed by a smaller group within the intel community who believed that a purposeful or accidental lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the likely cause of the outbreak.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, some officials who supported the possibility of a COVID-19 lab-leak theory were allegedly prevented by the Biden administration from expressing their opinions to the president and other intelligence community leaders.

During the initial phase of Joe Biden's presidency, he instructed the U.S. intelligence community to produce a comprehensive report on their most recent assessment of the coronavirus's origins. However, this report was hindered by China's refusal to grant U.S. officials access to the Wuhan Institute, which impeded their ability to conduct thorough research on the virus's origins.

Currently, the FBI is the only government agency that believes a lab leak is the most probable cause.

According to Jason Bannan, a senior scientist at the FBI who helped lead the agency's investigation into COVID-19's origins, he and his colleagues were not invited to share their assessment during an August 2021 briefing with the president, which was led by the White House's National Intelligence Council, on the natural versus artificial origins of COVID-19.

"We expected the FBI to be invited to the briefing because we were the only agency that concluded a laboratory origin was more likely and had the highest confidence in our analysis of the pandemic source, according to Bannan, who told the Wall Street Journal. It's surprising that the White House didn't invite us."

According to sources, three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence were blocked from sharing their research that concluded the coronavirus originated from a lab leak. A Defense Intelligence Agency Inspector General report was commissioned to determine if their assessment was suppressed.

The ODNI spokesperson refused to comment on the unpublished report.

The three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, John Hardham, Robert Cutlip, and Jean-Paul Chretien, claimed that evidence they discovered indicated that Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were conducting risky "gain-of-function" research. They then informed their counterparts, including someone on Bannan's team at the FBI, about their findings. However, in July 2021, the trio was instructed by their superiors to cease sharing their work with individuals at the FBI, who were deemed to be "off the reservation," according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's spokesperson stated that the intelligence community-wide assessment of COVID-19's origins included input from all members of the community on the two main hypotheses, adhering to the Intelligence Community's analytic standards, including objectivity.

The National Intelligence Council assessment included both viewpoints, following the standard process for coordination.