Every modern president seems to promise transparency during their campaigns, but few ever seem to get around to it. Once in power, the value of being opaque becomes evident. We will have to wait to see if President Donald Trump will fulfill his pledges, but so far this is proving the cellophane administration. Putting aside his constant press gaggles and conferences, the Administration has ordered wholesale disclosures of long-withheld files from everything from the JFK investigation to, most recently, the CIA COVID origins report. That report is particularly stinging for both the Biden Administration and its media allies, which treated the lab theory as a fringe, conspiratorial, or even racist theory.
Newly-confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the report, which details how it views the lab theory as the most likely explanation for the virus. Expressing “low confidence,” the agency did not reject the theory over the natural origins theory, which was treated as sacrosanct by the media and favored by figures like Anthony Fauci. (Other recent reports have contradicted the equally orthodox view on the closing of schools, showing no material benefit in terms of slowing the transmission of COVID).
The BBC reported that “the CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is ‘more likely’ to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. But the intelligence agency cautioned it had ‘low confidence’ in this determination.”
The low confidence finding shows that the agency found the evidence fragmented and fluid. However, the point is that the natural origins theory and the lab theory were both viable theories. Neither was disproven or rejected. Other agencies like the FBI seemed to have a higher confidence in the lab theory over the natural origins theory.
Even a low-confidence finding shows the height of hypocrisy in Washington where politicians and pundits savaged any scientist who even suggested the possibility that the virus was man-made and likely originated in the Wuhan lab near the site of the outbreak.
This follows a recent disclosure in the Wall Street Journal of a report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of President Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
As previously discussed, many journalists used the rejection of the lab theory to paint Trump as a bigot. By the time Biden became president, not only were certain government officials heavily invested in the zoonotic or natural origin theory, but so were many in the media.
Reporters used opposition to the lab theory as another opportunity to pound their chests and signal their virtue.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified.”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid also called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum,” while CNN reporter Drew Griffin criticized spreading the “widely debunked” theory. CNN host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.
NBC News’s Janis Mackey Frayer described it as the “heart of conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) raised the theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
Likewise, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
As these efforts failed and more information emerged supporting the lab theory, many media figures just looked at their shoes and shrugged. Others became more ardent. In 2021, New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was still calling on reporters not to mention the “racist” lab theory.
In Kessler’s case, he wrote that the lab theory was “suddenly credible” as if it had sprung from the head of Zeus rather than having been supported for years by scientists, many of whom had been canceled and banned.
As these figures were attacking reports, Biden officials were sitting on these reports. Figures like Fauci did nothing to support those academics being canceled or censored for raising the theory.
The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.
The suppression of the lab theory proves the ultimate fallacy of censorship. Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate. Ideas, like water, have a way of finding their way out in time.
Yet, as the last few years have shown, it does succeed in imposing costs on those with dissenting views. For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.
Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
One of the saddest aspects of this story is that many of these figures in government, academia and the media were not necessarily trying to shield China. Some were motivated by their investment in the narrative while others were drawn by the political and personal benefits that came from joining the mob against a minority of scientists.
The CIA report obviously does not resolve this debate, but it shows that there is a legitimate debate despite the overwhelming message of the media and the attacks on scientists. Of course, the same media and political figures responsible for this culture of intimidation have simply moved on. The value of an alliance with the media is that such embarrassing contradictions are not reported. At most, these figures shrug and turn to the next subject for groupthink and mob action.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
NB: This column was changed shortly after publication to add the link to the meaning of “low confidence” in the CIA report and to repeat that the issue is not which theory is correct, but that neither theory was found dispositive or invalid. Other media links were added as background.
The evolutionary sequence data clearly shows that the closest relatives of SARS-CoV2 exist in wild animals that serve the Wuhan wet market, and were not known to science until after the outbreak. No closer relatives have ever been identified in labs. The geographic center of the outbreak matches the wet market and is inconsistent with an inadvertent lab release. The early virus was suboptimal for human transmission, and rapidly evolved the relevant traits early during the outbreak, indicating that it was not pre-adapted to humans. This isn’t rocket science to figure out.
“No closer relatives have ever been identified in labs.”
Nice lie by omission — which destroys your credibility.
You know damn well that the communist Chinese government is playing hide the evidence.
When honest, independent scientists study the Wuhan notebooks and viral inventory, then — and only then — can there be a rational discussion of “closer relatives.”
Funny that. Everyone deep into this science I have read or listened too talked about the absolutely manipulated DNA of this virus, and it’s 99.9% impossibility of coming from the wild “natural” processes.
I was a pharmacy technician during that time. I discussed this with one of the pharmacists. She was shocked by the manipulation of the virus, she said this cannot happen in nature. She was adamant. It absolutely cannot happen in nature, it had to have been done in a lab. What so shocked her was what had been inserted into the virus.
I remember also discussing HCQ and Ivermectin with her.
I am not saying that Joe Biden was in the tank for China, but I am saying that every time he had an opportunity to make a decision that affected China he made it in their favor.
Comment from Cynical Publius that is too good not to share:
To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.
I’ll illustrate.
Traditional Approach:
1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.
Trump Approach:
1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.
See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.
“China Flu, 2019,” and no one missed their mail delivery for even one day.
No one mentioned it; no one even noticed; it was just there, every day.
How ’bout those mailmen?
The globalist, corporate unAmerican press is about to get Tyler Bradened by a perceived “devil” they think they know very well. CNN laying off hundreds with Acosta exiled to the graveyard shift; WaPo on its last legs and seeing a purge of its radical fringe and the LA Times backtracking on its strident anti-Americanism are all signs of the coming nationwide Leftwing Armageddon. The are in full retreat because they thought FAFO was a UN project and not a hissing rattle. It isn’t Trump; he is merely the roar not the lion. It’s bigger and hiding in plain sight, and it’s always the stealthy ones who strike the deadliest when pushed way too far:
https://extremismterms.adl.org/glossary/globalist
anti-Semitic much?
Maybe he is
What are you going to do about it?
I’m Jewish. Stop using me you disgusting pos.
Fauci outsourced banned Gain of Function research to the Wuhan lab.
Question: Was this an illegal, criminal act?
And if it was, is he immune from prosecution by Biden’s preemptive blanket declaration of immunity?
JT’s very last paragraph laments, “The value of an alliance with the media is that such embarrassing contradictions are not reported.”
I offer that they are not “embarrassing contradictions.” They are intentional distortions by a massive anti-Trump media that I mistakenly thought would back off after the election.
Tonite I open my device and see John Ratcliffe’s name in the Microsoft “widgets” desktop homepage—one of several clickbait headlines showing the intentionally-misleading but subliminally-proffered titles from our beloved media-all on a single widget page. The intent is to clearly affect/influence those who don’t have time to review the stories, but are bombarded with the Trump-deflating headlines. Anything, ANYthing, to lower Trump/administration in the eyes of readers/viewers.
I DARE anyone who reads this comment to look up each of these titled examples/gems and read what the articles really really say, contrary to the implication of the headline:
“Trump’s CIA Chief John Ratcliffe Shocks Americans with Pro-China Statement.”
“Riley Gaines tears into WNBA star who gave Caitlin Clark black eye for wearing anti-Trump shirt”
“‘I consider myself an American’- Joe Rogan seemingly distances himself from Trump after endorsement”
nite-nite to all, and thanks to the good professor for affording this platform for me to vent so as not to weigh down my pillow with heavy thoughts.
I typed “Trump’s CIA Chief John Ratcliffe Shocks Americans with Pro-China Statement” into Google. Not a single search result was found.
The Riley Gaines story was Fox News. Too liberal for you?
Are you a bot having a hallucination? Or is this something more sinister?
took me two seconds
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/covid-originated-trumps-cia-chief-john-ratcliffe-shocks-americans-with-pro-china-statement/vi-AA1xTvbO
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9d22yo
Are you liar? Orr is something more sinister?
Jonathan: In a previous comment I stated that Elon Musk is a fascist. Some on your blog thought Musk being a fascist was a good thing. And it’s not just about the Nazi-like salute, although that should be a sufficient indication. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at NY University, raised the red flag by saying: “Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too”. And Ben-Ghiat is not the only one to make that assertion. Even fascists admit the obvious. Italian fascist Andrea Stroppa, who is close to Musk and connected him to the far-right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, said of Musk’s straight-arm salute: “Roman empire is back starting from the Roman salute”. For those too young to remember Hitler adopted Mussolini’s Roman salute for the Nazi movement.
There is other evidence Musk is a fascist. Musk is now embracing far-right fascist parties in England and Germany. Musk is backing the AfD, the neo-Nazi party in Germany. At an AfD campaign event on Saturday Musk appeared by video with a Nazis-weren’t-so bad theme. Musk told the AfD crowd they should not feel guilty about the past: “Children [German] should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great grandparents. There is too much focus on the past guilt, and we need to move beyond that”. Musk also said that “people take pride in Germany and being German”. Sound familiar? That’s what Hitler told the German before and after he took power.
In his video Musk also adopted the position of Holocaust deniers. He told the assembled that immigration threatened Germany. He told them not to lose their “national pride” in “some kind of multiculturalism that dilutes everything”. By “dilutes” Musk echoes the themes of DJT in his anti-immigration campaign that immigrants are “diluting the blood” of white Americans.
Musk is trying to normalize and embolden avowed neo-Nazi and other white nationalists. As the richest person in the world Musk is putting his stamp of approval of targeting Jews, immigrants and people of color. That’s the face of fascism and Musk is it’s biggest proponent!
Many words written for such vapid thinking.
DM never thinks even one level below the surface. Also, his comments are usually based on assertions that have already been proven false. Overall, his comments are worthless and not worth responding to, let alone reading.
Puuurrrrrrtfect Floyd!
D M – there is far more reason to take pride in being German than in being a troll.
Germans were bad a$$, until Merkel destroyed them with Muslim immigration.
…as did Lincoln.
DM – 100% true. We are in dangerous and dark times. With the recent firings of Inspector Generals; clamps on common; freezing grant; firing of DOJ officials; deportations handled roughly using the military and seeking the media (Dr. Phil?!?) for attention we are clearly moving in a fascist direction. Anyone denying Musk’s actions is a fool. Look into his grandfather’s history and his support of neo- Nazis.
Oh bother, not the neo-Nazis again! Hide all the white women, grow potatoes, get your pitchforks!!
* After Chernobyl labs leaked . It’s reasonable and cautionary to consider such in Wuhan and cautionary to the USA as it has collapsed and its labs contain every known deadly disease for research. Who are the keepers in the USA should give pause .
Personal note: sorrow to those who’ve suffered and prayers have dried up as they would seem to be blasphemous from here in the land of many gods.
I no longer read the comments.
China owes 195 countries $250 trillion (to be increased) in damages.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.
The International Court of Justice must find that the preponderance of evidence proves that it is more likely true than not that China is liable for the deliberate or accidental release of “China Flu, 2019″ from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
Imagine a mysterious chocolate borne disease suddenly emerging in Hershey, PA. Now imagine the powers that be stating (without evidence) that it was from a bat in a farmer’s market a half mile from the chocolate factory and had no connection at all to the factory… and anyone who even suggests it might be from the factory is a racist. All the while some well connected people are making tons of money and advancing their careers by sending millions of taxpayer dollars to conduct virus experiments at the factory. Then the media has no interest in investigating whether the virus is from the factory and vilifies anyone even raising questions about whether it might have come from a factory leak. That Alice in Wonderland scenario is the reality skeptics have been living in for the last five years.
How many wet markets are there in Hershey?
I went to one in Vietnam. Do you even know what they are? That is the most ridiculous analogy I’ve ever heard.
Was that in Bien Hoa, Long Binh, or Dau Tieng?
Read it again. It doesn’t say wet market. It says farmers market. Even if it did, it’s a hypothetical. Look up that word in the dictionary if you don’t know what it means. Or think about the fact that the first word in my comment is “imagine.”
5 years later, smoking gun points to China’s Wuhan lab in search of Covid-19 origin
December 28, 2024
Five years after SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease, first emerged in China’s Wuhan, the evidence so far makes a convincing case for a laboratory-origin of the virus, indicting Chinese researchers and their collaborators abroad for a pandemic unseen in living memory that sickened over 770 million people and killed over 7 million
5 years later, smoking gun points to China’s Wuhan lab in search of Covid-19 origin.In early December 2019, the first clinically diagnosed case of Covid-19 was identified in Hubei province’s Wuhan city, according to Chinese authorities. By the last week of December, the genome of the virus had been sequenced and a Chinese doctor figured out that human-to-human transmission was ongoing. The logical next step would have been to make the genome public and tell the world everything about novel coronavirus, which had not yet been formally named. It would later be called SARS-CoV-2 — standing for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, named after a similar outbreak a few years earlier. Instead, the Chinese authorities imposed a gag order on doctors and scientists and started destroying patients’ samples or transferring them to designated institutions. It was only on January 5, 2020, that a Chinese scientist, Zhang Yongzhen, uploaded the genome to a US-based database but inexplicably embargoed access till July. Two days later, Zhang submitted a paper to the journal Nature detailing the genome which he co-authored with Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney, Australia. By January 10, Nature sent out the manuscript for peer review. Around the same time, criticism surfaced by prominent scientists like Jeremy Farrar —who would go on to be the Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO)— about papers being submitted to journals even though the WHO was being kept in the dark. Two days later, under pressure, Zhang shared the genome with Holmes, who in turn uploaded it to a website run by a British biologist. This is how the world learnt about the genome of SARS-CoV-2 nearly two weeks after it was sequenced and that too from a Sydney-based virologist and not Chinese authorities.
…
“Mathematically, the probability of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus having two consecutive CGG codons would be less than 1/30 assuming non-independent codon selection for the two codon positions. The probability would be less than 1/9,000 assuming independent codon selection for the two codon positions.” Overall, the combined probabilities of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus possessing FCS and having two consecutive CGG codons is less than 1 in 24,000 to less than 1 in 720,000, says Ebright, the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. Against this backdrop, Broad Institute scientists Shing Hei Zhan, Benjamin E Deverman, and Alina Chan cautiously floated the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 originating in a laboratory since the probability of these features in nature was extremely rare. They noted that the “possibility that a non-genetically-engineered precursor could have adapted to humans while being studied in a laboratory should be considered, regardless of how likely or unlikely”.
– Firstpost https://www.firstpost.com/world/5-years-later-smoking-gun-points-to-chinese-wuhan-lab-in-search-of-covid-19-origin-13848124.html
A mirror of the AIDs virus origin. There was a pretty good probability that it came from the release of test chimpanzees that the French polio vaccine researchers released into the wild of the Congo. The researcher that was pursuing the link died mysteriously during the efforts. Seems the French would have had some serious liabilities if that link were proven.
So the “journalists” all fell in line to attack anyone challenging the official narrative of the powers that be. Like “Rage Against the Machine” holding a fundraiser for the CIA and the military-industrial complex (h/t Babylon Bee).
I read the CIA press release, and it’s worthless. They even conceal which IC “units” favored which hypotheses. And the important stuff, the genetic analyses done by evolutionary virologists — not even mentioned. Somebody needs to tell Director Ratcliff “Next time, provide supporting arguments from the intel analysts, because we are not stupid”.
You’re not stupid; you’re biased.
That notable thinker Joy Reid refers to “debunked bunkum” Wouldn’t that be “um”? She may have unintentionally created a new word.
“Airblown Puppy,” you should probably post more; you don’t post enough.
And what was your MOS, Dogface?
So they are deporting suspected sex abusers…
In a post on X, McGraw described the man as a “convicted sex offender and internet predator.”
This is great news. I wonder if they are going to stop by the White House and grab the trump sexual abuser and send him back to his “home” country. Where ever that is.
^^ Paid DNC troll. Ignore. ^^
I have no doubt, none whatsoever, you love a sexual abuser as president. Perhaps there is hope for you yet?
Me love Bill Clinton and Joe Biden? No, I voted against both. Or are you referring to the bogus, corrupt lawfare of the past four years?
On November 5 the people rejected that desecration and weaponization of the American justice system. Your pathetic side lost. Trump is back by popular demand. Get used to it.
How ironic, when it is your side that (a) objects to Trump deporting illegal immigrants who have been convicted of sexual offenses, and (b) favors biological men in women’s locker rooms, showers, and jail cells.
The voters, as noted above, voted for sanity on both those topics, which means they voted against sexual abuse. That is exactly the reason your candidate lost.
Does your Mom know you’re on the internet again?
This is meant as a compliment to the American security and intelligence personnel.
It’s important to remember the American oath of office is the only thing that separates Americans from a World War Two style Gestapo (loyalty to a single person) or a communist era Stasi (loyalty to a political party).
Americans swear supreme loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and to not violate the rights of Americans! Loyalty to an American dictator is a Gestapo, not an American intel service!
An “American dictator” doesn’t exist outside your fevered imagination.