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.
As though the MSM correspondents / personalities are emulating Tokyo Rose.
Dr Fauci flat out lied when he said there was no evidence that the virus had escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He knew, at the time, a proven in emails, that the virus had genetic markers of gene editing. He knew that the US had funded gain of function research at this lab for coronaviruses from bats. He was aware of multiple reports on failures in lab biosafety practices.
What a coincidence. The source of the Covid pandemic is Wuhan. Patient zero worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan Institute of Virology received funding to study gain of function in bat coronaviruses. The lab has a poor biosafety record. China deliberately withheld information that an epidemic had begun in Wuhan, and allowed the virus to spread globally, before a brave Chinese doctor blew the whistle. Dr Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist, was reprimanded for alerting to a SARS outbreak, and died from Covid. Dr Zhang Jixian reported the outbreak to the CDC in Wuhan. Knowing this, Dr Fauci faced the nation and lied. I naively believed Fauci when he said there were no genetic markers to indicate the virus came from a lab. Then he pushed masks knowing they didn’t work. Because of Fauci’s dishonesty, I’ll never believe the CDC again.
Americans’ trust in government agencies has been absolutely rocked across all 3 letter agencies.
Fauci was the Soup Nazi of the NIH. If a biochemist said anything nice about the lab leak theory, then no soup for you. No research grant funding and your career is over.
Trump has terminated Fasci’s government provided security detail. I wonder whether he faces a greater hypothetical threat from some individual who lost loved ones to COVID, or from interests who fear he might reveal their role in its spread when forced to testify? I certainly hope nothing happens to him until the latter event transpires (assuming that happens). After that, my reaction would be one articulated by Chris Rock in an old stand-up comedy routine: “I don’t approve. But I do understand”.
Fauci got millions of our taxpayer dollars and can easily afford private security without stealing even more from us.
He’s older than the hills on Grandma’s chest, he won’t need it much longer.
Fedgov security might have some competency issues, but probably would not intentionally expose one of their charges to mortal risk (I am assuming that what happened to Trump in Butler, PA was attributable to USSS incompetence). Under the second risk scenario I posed, how could Fasci have any confidence that all of the members of the new, private, security detail he was paying were truly working for him, and not for some Deep State mogul and/or the CCP?
Karen S. Couldn’t you work in the word “zoonotic”? WHERE did you get the “facts” you are claiming? MAGA media—that’s where.
Gigenius is losing her mind ^^^^
she’s leaking venom because someone called her out for using others’ words, so she flicks her tongue at Karen S. Even her colon is copycatted.
Prof. Turley continues to write from the true liberal perspective – while his split with the anti-freedom left is set in concrete,
he still constantly qualifying everything he says regarding Trump republicans etc.
Turley’s article on the arrogance of the DC courts is incredibly important,
and inconsequential at the same time.
It is nothing we did not expect.
It is why despite Truley’s timid oposition the commutations will likely turn to pardons.
And few will care.
People do not support everything Trump does.
But they do NOT feel the need to join the shrinking left in the pretense that Trump is an existential threat.
Some people are positively giddy at much of what Trump is doing.
A few are angry because they want more.
Ultimately his supporters will be disappointed – because he will fall short on many promises.
But that is the disappointment of a parent when their child gets an A- instead of an A.
Most people do not support alot of what Trump is doing – like Turley they are bothered by details.
They do not wish to see J6 commutations turn to pardons.
But that quibbling over details does not rise to the level of undermining their support or tolerance of what Trump is doing.
Turley is not going to call Trump a Nazi or a threat to democracy if he pardons Stewart Rhoads to B**** slap DC judges for their unconstitutional efforts to obstruct Trump clemency.
Some democrats have tried to sabatoge Trump nominees in the senate. almost no one is listening.
In many instances democrats attacking Trump nominees have no credibility. They can not land blows even if they are right.
because in the view of the people, they are all liars.
What is different from 2017 ?
People KNOW trump and the strategies of his enemies are not working.
No one cares about the allegations against Hegseth,
Probably even Gates could have been confirmed.
Democrats have a strategy of using hearings to paint a picture of Trump and his nominees.
Almost No one is listening.
To the left, Democrats,
You don’t matter anymore.
Everyday we hear the same nonsense from the “usual suspects” – whether it is on this blog, or in the MSM.
But almost no one takes any of it seriously.
@John
Absolutely correct. They are less than a mosquito buzzing in the ear. The era of the woke left is simply, unequivocally, over.
Trump has been defacto president since the election. He became the infact president a week ago.
That whole time period has been filled with significant momentous change. That change has only just started.
The left is apoplectic.
The media is frothing and foaming.
Democrats are raging.
While the country is either cheering Trump on or quietingly ignoring it all.
To those of you on the left
YOU DONT MATTER ANYMORE.
Almost no one is listening.
Like the little boy who cried wolf – no one beleives you.
You are behaving like this is 2017 again – but it is not.
Trump has the highest approval rating he has ever had – that has Never happened in a 2nd term before.
Trump has set a pace that will outdo the accomplishments of his first term by an order of magnitude.
Further he is doing exactly what he said he would do as candidate. He is doing what he promised.
He is doing what you said would be the end of democracy – and yet if anything it is the return of democracy.
He is doing what many if not most voters want.
He is ending massive amounts of totalitarian left wing nut policies.
And despite the lefts efforts to stir up outrage, people are either cheering him on or watching peacefully.
Almost no one is listing to the left.
“You dont matter anymore”.
Amazed you can’t let this go, Jon. Proves beyond reasonable doubt what a hack you’ve become in your service to Fox and Trump. Gain of function is part of medical and drug research and will continue to be so….
Trump blew the response to covid from a public health perspective. And he’s going to do it again.
What does your claim about “Trump blowing the response” have to do with Mr. Turley pointing out that the lab leak theory is gaining in credibility with the government agencies looking into how COVID started?
Those are two different topics. And since your point is not related to Mr. Turley’s, it suggest you are just another person with a bad case of TDS.
You MAGAS are nothing if not consistently delusional. You and Karen S repeated some BS praise for the flurry of Executive Orders, as if this proves he’s”keeping promises” or getting down to business rapidly. I know you got that idea from MAGA media. Here’s the thing: Project 2025 axxholes drafted up all of these “Executive Orders” long before the fat boy ever entered the Oval Office. This was done because they KNEW that he took office with a less than 50% approval rating and that his numbers would rapidly go down from there, including push back from Republicans because the things he’s trying to get away with are illegal, unconstitutional and immoral—like pardoning the J6 insurrectionists. His effort to re- write the Constitution already drew an injunction. But MAGA media has to serve up pro-Trump slop to keep you believing. It’s all part of the Project 2025 takeover— shove as much sh!t down our throats before even the Republicans organize opposition against him.
Did someone call for me, please take a number, really busy since Kamala Harris LOST…
But Dr. Jack will get you high tonight,
And take you to your special island.
Oh, Dr. Jack will get you high tonight,
Just a little push and you’ll be smiling.
Told u it was gigenius
Well, the thing about a bioweapon is that it’s nothing if not political. The CIA, and the Fed, have never denied that it funded “gain of function” research in Wuhan but why? Why would, the NIH, the State Dept, USAID, and the Dept of Defense fund gain of function research in China as stated by Robert Redfield in March of 2023, and in a lab, as I understand it, with long history of bioweapons research, if not for the purpose of developing a bioweapon? That’s what’s not being said here. Also, that every aspect of Covid management was, in fact, a huge power grab by America’s extremely corrupt political class. Certainly our adversaries know that, how incredibly corrupt the DC establishment is, how is it the American people do not know that?
And what was it medical researchers were saying in February of 2020? Natural herd immunity… that was the feeling in the scientific community. Everything else that follows, or followed, was political – a power grab, a daily smorgasbord of lies, and absolutely wrong.
Now, on to climate change…
https://realclimatescience.com/2025/01/not-supported-by-the-scientific-consensus/#gsc.tab=0
The origin of Covid is a historical fact. What happened already happened and it is not a matter where people can have their own opinions. We might not know for sure where it came from, but one needs to look at raw data and not make it a political issues.
Meanwhile, another story from the Land of Pretend! This, from Free Republic, via the New York Post. That school shooting the other day, where a kid got killed? Well,
“The Nashville high school where a teen gunman killed a fellow student last week had no metal detectors — apparently because administrators think they could be racist.
A former board member told The Post that the misguided administrators are responsible for keeping them out even over many parents’ objections.
“I knew this day was gonna happen,” said Fran Bush, formerly a Metro Nashville Public Schools board member.
Bush, who served on the MNPS board from 2018 to 2022, said she pushed for metal detectors throughout her tenure but that district Director Adrienne Battle “didn’t want to hear it” — even as parents backed calls for metal detectors to keep their kids safe.
“I knew it was gonna happen just because it’s like a free open door, everybody coming in,” she said of the Tennessee district’s schools, including Antioch High, where 17-year-old shooter Solomon Henderson murdered a 16-year-old classmate Wednesday. *** One of the studies shared by MNPS said metal detectors disproportionately target students of color, too — a detail that other studies over the years have focused on, with findings suggesting that instills a sense of fear for minority students. *** But Bush characterized such “unintended consequences” as mere excuses — calling them “a bunch of bull.
“There’s no study [that] shows metal detectors don’t work,” she said. “If that was the case, then we won’t have them in our airports, sports games, we wouldn’t have them in all these places that require security,” Bush said.
What’s more, Bush said, the students themselves told her they wanted metal detectors when she was doing her own research on the proposal.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/26/us-news/nashville-school-where-teen-killed-classmate-had-no-metal-detectors-apparently-because-administrators-think-they-could-be-racist/
The media is clutching desparately at the “low confidence” rating forgetting that rating applies to the universe of all possible causes not just to a lab leak. The lab leak is however the only cause rated “most likely”.
The odds that this virus, with it’s tremendous virulence and transmissibility, has NEVER ONCE been found in a single bat, or any other animal on the planet, after searching for 5 years, are 1 in 150 sextillion.
Give me a break.
I don’t care what any “scientist” has to say, that is PROOF that it was man made.
Doesn’t anyone remember hearing about the polished bonding sites of the virus. Those key sites that made it capable of being transmitted to humans? I remember reading about that early on but the propaganda machine kept pushing it was from the wet market. I knew even then it was released and the Chinese exported it across the world, Italy comes to mind.
When the Democrat tyrants tell you they want half the population to die off…believe them.
Yea, somehow, this virus that jumped from a bat to humans, did so, already armed with EXACTLY what it took to make it highly successful at infecting humans. It didn’t mutate to that point. Another HIGHLY unlikely scenario.
And another point. The probability of mutation is a function of how many times a virus replicates. So how is it that TWO of the major variants, Beta and Omichron, BOTH originated in South Africa, which is not even in the TOP THIRTY countries in terms of infection rate.
South Africa has had just over 4 Million cases of Covid-19. Yet 2 of the variants originated there. Riiiiiiight.
The US has had 111 Million cases.
There can be little doubt that the virus was manmade. The question is in whose lab was it made and how was it released? Bear in mind that there was an international military games event in China just before news of the new virus hit the airwaves.
This isn’t the first time that a government tried to burn the truth. Now the CIA says there’s low confidence that there was a fire. The CIA was just one of many agencies and media outlets that struck the match. They put a small piece of wood with a red tip topped with a dot of white to the first principle of a democracy. Then they told you with unmitigated gall that their political opposition is a danger to democracy. Those who burned the truth declared that the very existence of democracy was on the ballot. Appropriately, may there be a pox on all their houses and may all their viewership dwindle to ash.
Former U.S. Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, had the famous quote”
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant”
Not a Trump fan but maximum transparency and declassifying things is really good for most Americans. Transparency and declassifying secrets also acts as a “deterrent effect” to any president.
If a president knows beforehand his or her actions will be declassified, they are deterred from doing it in the first place. Voters can’t self-govern through their representatives in Congress or state legislatures if we practice excessive secrecy.
For example: nearly 20 years ago George W. Bush justified creating an off-shore gulag and secret prisons telling voters these guys were “the worst-of-the-worst”. So dangerous they couldn’t be kept in a Supermax prison. Since then, with declassification, voters now know about 90% of the so-called “worst-of-the-worst” were released without any charges whatsoever.
Today Guantanamo Bay remains the most expensive taxpayer-funded gulag on Planet Earth. At the time Bush probably lied knowing his lies would be classified for 50 years. Shorter classification periods would have likely deterred Bush from inventing such lies and deterred many of his war crimes!
I don’t care if they were the best of the worst.
100% correct, the US military should have been able to execute them on the field of battle.
Mr. Turley, will Trump release the oral Report from Special Counsel Robert K Hur February 2024, that Biden blocked?
The CIA can rely on only 1 man. Special agent Flint. Flint can find out where the China Virus came from. That would also include the bird flu.
“… 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.”…”
My Dog got it from cheap Dry Dog Food, I got it from my Dog, severely before Covid shots. I don’t believe it came from a Lab, not my experience. Yes Natural immunity works, but when afflicted, you need to work hard to get the flem-plaque out of your lungs – Athletic Hard to eject it.
Later I took shots because I didn’t want to go through the near-death experience of drowning alive with my congested lungs. I literally asked friends to check check on me in the mornings to see that I didn’t drown in bed in the middle of the night.
Gain of Function in Wuhan is like us Rednecks going out and saying “Watch me do this!”.
Nothing good comes of it.
“Here, hold my Tsingtao while I mix up a batch of round-eye killer.”
China’s holy grail will have been reached some day when they have learned to create a virus that Han Chinese are immune to.
There are still a few reserves of Smallpox at various labs, including one in Russia.
That can’t go wrong.
Dea Mr. Turley, so, if a White House Staff member dared mention the possibility of a “lab leak” they were told they were “off the reservation”? That is almost funny if it were not so sad. Indeed, there were too many Chiefs and not enough Indians running the show at the White House as Biden was unavailable until 10:00 a.m. and took naps in the afternoon. I hope someone someday will tell us the truth of how the correct information was kept from the people.
I do enjoy watching MSM credibility go down the drain as more and more what they call conspiracy theories become if not facts then a inconvenience to their stance.
As to the group think and mob mentality, there still has to be some one or a few to several persons to are steering the group think and mob.
@Upstate
Same here. I agree with the Professor: censorship never, ever works. The game modern dems have been playing since 2008 was always doomed to fail in a country with a 1A, and people will only take so much. The object lesson does not seem to have been learned though. Hopefully the next 4-12 years will reinforce it.