A CIA whistleblower has informed Congress that the agency allegedly offered financial incentives to officials on a team investigating the origins of COVID-19 to change their positions.
The original stance of the team was that the virus originated from a leak in the Wuhan lab, but it is said to have been influenced to shift to an "unable to determine" stance, according to information obtained by Fox News.
Letters from House Coronavirus Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner were sent to the CIA and a former official, expressing concerns about the whistleblower's testimony regarding the CIA's investigation into COVID-19 origins.
The whistleblower, described as a senior-level, current CIA officer, claimed that the CIA had assigned seven officers to a COVID Discovery Team, consisting of experts with scientific expertise. Six of the seven members reportedly believed that COVID-19 likely originated from a Wuhan laboratory based on intelligence and science. The seventh, the most senior member, believed it was a result of zoonosis. The whistleblower further alleged that the other six members were offered significant financial incentives to change their position, ultimately leading to a public declaration of uncertainty.
Wenstrup and Turner considered the source credible and called for further oversight into how the CIA conducted its internal investigation into the virus's origins. They set a deadline of September 26, 2023, for the CIA to provide records related to the COVID Discovery Teams, communications from those teams, documents involving CIA communications with other government agencies, and information on financial incentives for team members.
Additionally, they asked the former chief operating officer at the CIA, Andrew Makridis, to participate in a voluntary transcribed interview regarding his alleged role in the formation and conclusion of the CIA's investigation.
In June, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified COVID-19 origins report to Congress, stating that both a lab leak and natural exposure remained plausible hypotheses for the virus's origin. Various intelligence agencies held different positions on the matter, with some favoring a natural origin and others a lab leak.
The report noted that the CIA had not reached a definitive conclusion, citing challenges with conflicting reporting and assumptions. However, the report ruled out the possibility of the virus being genetically engineered as a biological weapon.
