Remember when the lab leak theory was for “fringe lunatics?” Those days are done…
The New York Post is now reporting the CIA paid off six analysts to bury the COVID lab leak theory according to recently released whistleblower testimony.
Now, committee chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) have requested all documents, communications, and pay info from the CIA’s COVID Discovery Team by Sept. 26.
“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the House panel chairmen wrote.
“The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis,” the chairmen continued.
“The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” they said, noting that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”
According to The Post, “in a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis as having ‘played a central role’ in the COVID investigation and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview.”
Not surprisingly, the CIA and Makridis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But what’s really interesting is what Makridis does now…
Andrew Makridis now serves as a senior adviser at Beacon Global Strategies —his bio on the website says he spent “over a decade in the Directorate of Intelligence working and then leading the technical analysis of Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean strategic weapons and space capabilities.”
How close was he to China, one might wonder. As the agent in charge of the CIA’s COVID-19 response, why would he work so hard to bury the lab leak theory —going so far as to pay off scientists who concluded the Wuhan Lab was the most likely source?
Questions we hope these GOP-led committees will get the answers to.
