(USRTK)—A newly declassified Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assessment from May 2020 concluded that all of the conditions necessary for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus were present at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted.
The report was among nearly 400 pages of COVID-19 origins records released Thursday by the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as part of a broader document dump that included internal Intelligence Community (IC) emails, scientific publications, diplomatic cables, congressional correspondence and documents related to U.S.-funded coronavirus research in Wuhan.
The Lawrence Livermore report found that Wuhan researchers possessed the capabilities, materials and research programs that would have been required to create and accidentally release a coronavirus adapted to infect humans.
“We assess all of the necessary conditions for an accidental release of a laboratory-modified coronavirus – specifically a coronavirus adapted to recognize human cell receptors – were present at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology in mid-to-late 2019,” the report states.
As a result, analysts at the California-based national laboratory said they placed “equal weight” on three possible scenarios for the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that spawned the pandemic: a lab-modification followed by an accidental leak, natural emergence or an accidental release of a naturally-occurring virus from a laboratory.
The previously unreleased report was prepared on May 27, 2020 by Lawrence Livermore’s Z Program, which supports U.S. intelligence and national security missions. The report states that it also “used additional intelligence information from a CIA Field Analytic Conversation.” Large portions of the document remain redacted.
The report appears to be the same document that CIA whistleblower James Erdman III testified last month had concluded all prerequisite conditions for a lab leak were present at WIV but was inexplicably excluded from the IC’s public assessments throughout 2020 and shared only in a classified annex the following year. Erdman identified that record as a May 2020 report that was produced by “a DOE national lab.”
ODNI’s press office did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment about the records.
The Lawrence Livermore assessment identified four conditions that would have been necessary for a laboratory-origin scenario. Those included access to a virus closely related to SARS-CoV-2, use of a reverse genetics system capable of modifying coronaviruses, experiments involving human ACE2 receptors and biosafety failures or lab accidents involving coronavirus research.
The report stopped short of concluding that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered or that a lab leak occurred. Rather, it argued that available information showed that the WIV possessed the capabilities and research activities needed for such a scenario.
The ODNI’s release of declassified records came two days after the lapse of a 180-day deadline set by the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. That law, passed in December, required the intelligence Community to review and publicly release additional COVID-19 origins intelligence. The law directed the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a declassification review, along with the heads of intelligence agencies, of intelligence on coronavirus research at the WIV, funding sources for that research, gain-of-function work and Chinese government efforts to obstruct investigations into the pandemic’s origins.
ODNI did not specifically cite the law when releasing the Livermore report and other records on Thursday. The release also came on the eve of Gabbard’s departure from ODNI after she announced her resignation last month.
Also included in Thursday’s release was a final progress report from the EcoHealth Alliance’s NIH-funded bat coronavirus research project that partnered with the WIV. Much of the information contained in that report has been publicly available previously through congressional investigations, FOIA disclosures and media reports, but its inclusion with the newly released records provides additional context about the types of coronavirus experiments that were conducted through the now defunct nonprofit’s collaboration with Chinese researchers before the pandemic.
The new records also provide additional insight into how U.S. government analysts evaluated competing origin theories during the earliest months of the pandemic.
Newly released emails show intelligence officials debating gain-of-function research, reverse genetics techniques, the virus’s unusual furin cleavage site and competing scientific explanations for how SARS-CoV-2 emerged.
In one March 2020 exchange, an analyst cautioned colleagues to set “a very high threshold” before concluding the virus resulted from gain-of-function research – lab manipulations that increase a virus’s infectivity and transmissibility to other species.
While acknowledging concerns about coronavirus research at the WIV, the analyst wrote that “Occam’s razor is the best guidance here,” arguing that natural explanations such as viral recombination remained plausible and shouldn’t be discounted. At the same time, the analyst stressed that a possible laboratory origin deserved rigorous scrutiny. “I’m not saying WIV isn’t guilty of creating this strain, but I think we need to pin it down hard before we make this assessment,” the analyst wrote. “I think the IC needs to be very thorough with its analysis.”
The emails show analysts grappling with evidence pointing in different directions. Some records discussed reports concerning coronavirus experiments at the WIV, while others circulated scientific papers arguing that SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t engineered and may have arisen naturally. The exchanges suggest that intelligence analysts were evaluating competing hypotheses rather than trying to confirm a settled conclusion.
The documents build on records previously obtained and reported by U.S. Right To Know showing that Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysts were already considering lab-origin scenarios as early as March 2020, months before the issue became a major public debate. A genomic analysis by scientists at the DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) published internally three months later also found the scenario that an engineered virus escaped from the WIV plausible, and became one of the first, and only, full assessments to emerge publicly. But that report, obtained via a FOIA lawsuit, also wasn’t referenced when the ODNI issued a public summary on intelligence assessments in its 2021 90-day origins study.
While the earlier DIA records established that intelligence analysts were examining the possibility of a lab leak early on, the newly released Lawrence Livermore assessment partially provides one of the only explanations to date of why some U.S. government experts believed the scenario warranted serious consideration at such an early stage in the pandemic.
ODNI’s records disclosure Thursday was accompanied by an agency press release that went further than what the documents themselves appear to show, accusing former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci of manipulating intelligence assessments and lying to Congress about his contacts with intelligence officials.
The records provide a more limited picture. Among them were email exchanges showing intelligence officials discussing Fauci, circulating scientific materials associated with him and receiving briefings from him as they evaluated competing origin theories. A July 2021 email chain shows officials considered asking Fauci to review a COVID-19 origins assessment before deciding against the idea because he would be viewed as having a conflict of interest. The records also show analysts receiving scientific views from other officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that were not always aligned with Fauci’s public position backing a natural-origins scenario while actively debating lab-origin scenarios and other evidence.
But the press release also independently cited an unnamed whistleblower’s testimony that alleged retaliation against analysts who challenged Fauci’s preferred conclusions on the virus’s origins. That description closely tracks with last month’s congressional testimony from Erdman, a CIA senior operations officer who had been detailed to an ODNI task force investigating COVID origins.
Erdman told the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee that CIA analysts repeatedly concluded a lab leak was the likely origin between 2021 and 2023, only to have their findings altered, buried or overridden by agency management. He also accused Fauci of shaping which outside scientists the IC consulted with and alleged broader retaliation and obstruction by the CIA. Erdman acknowledged, however, that he found no explicit evidence of a coordinated cover-up.
A CIA spokesperson has dismissed Erdman’s testimony as “dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing.” The whistleblower testimony referenced in the ODNI press release has been referred to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General, the release stated.
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