A CIA whistleblower has told Congress the agency bribed its own analysts to say Covid-19 did not originate in a Wuhan lab.
According to a veteran ‘senior-level’ serving agency officer, the CIA assigned seven officers to a Covid Discovery Team.
At the end of their investigation six of the seven believed the intelligence pointed to a low-confidence assessment that Covid-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China.
The seventh member, the most senior on the team, believed it evolved naturally. The other six were then given a ‘significant monetary incentive to change their position,’ according to the whistleblower.
The CIA ultimately refused to make an assessment even with low confidence.
‘Both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting,’ according to the agency.
The CIA denied engaging in bribery and said it would investigate the allegations.
‘At CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions. We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them. We will keep our Congressional oversight committees appropriately informed,’ CIA director of public affairs Tammy Kupperman Thorp said in a statement.
Republican congressmen Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup, both from Ohio, who lead the Intelligence and Covid committees respectively, wrote a letter to CIA Director William Burns on Tuesday demanding all documents on the matter.
The lawmakers set a September 26 deadline for the CIA to turn over all records involving the COVID Discovery Team and all communications with the FBI, State Department, Health and Human Services and Energy Department about the matter.
They threatened to slap the agencies with subpoenas if they do not comply.
Hellbound and Down 