(Headline USA) House Republicans alleged in a new report that the COVID-19 virus may have been part of a Chinese biological weapons research program when it was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.
The interim report, released on Wednesday by Republicans on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said “there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
“The committee has not seen any indications that the Chinese military intentionally released SARS-CoV-2,” the report added.
The report also ripped the intelligence community for downplaying the possibility of COVID-19 being linked to a Chinese bioweapons program.
“Our own IC has withheld relevant information from its oversight committee, the American public, and the world. The IC should provide the Committee with all of the requested documents as well as declassify the information referenced in the Committee’s classified report, which it can do without revealing sources and methods,” the report claimed.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., released a joint statement with several other lawmakers on Wednesday praising the panel’s work and vowing to continue investigating the origins of COVID-19 when they take the majority next year.
“Americans are owed answers about the origins of COVID-19 and future health threats, and they deserve leaders in Washington who remain steadfast in finding the truth,” the statement reads.
The committee’s report “marks significant progress toward that objective,” the Republicans continued.
“The findings identify more culpability from the Chinese Communist Party, highlight the failures of the Intelligence Community to share pertinent information with the American public and their authorized representatives, and give more credibility to the lab leak theory – which many government officials, Big Tech platforms, and media outlets were quick to label a ‘conspiracy theory,’” they said.
