CIA Director Ratcliffe to Review Agency's Handling of COVID-19 Origins, Favors Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

Jan 25, 2025, 05:00 PM

CIA Director John Ratcliffe has announced a review of the agency's handling of the controversy surrounding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ratcliffe stated that the intelligence community has been slow to recognize China as the primary geopolitical threat to the U.S. He aims to assess whether the virus originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a topic the CIA has not yet formally assessed. Ratcliffe's commitment comes in the wake of a new CIA assessment, initiated under the Biden administration and declassified by Ratcliffe, which now favors the lab leak theory over a natural origin of the virus. This shift in position was influenced by a directive from Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser at the time, to reassess the origins of the virus. The CIA's new stance is based on a 'low confidence' assessment that a research-related origin is more likely than a natural one.