JOE Biden’s administration shut down a Donald Trump-era investigation into the Wuhan institute at the center of the Covid-19 lab “leak” theory, it was reported Tuesday.
A State Department effort to prove Covid originated in a Chinese lab was reportedly stopped by Biden over concerns about the quality of work.
The probe was launched last fall by allies of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CNN reports, citing sources close to the matter.
The news comes as a renewed interest into whether the virus could have originated in a lab has been made public.
A bombshell report released by the Wall Street Journal this week alleged that three staffers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill and had to be hospitalized in November 2019, weeks before China disclosed the outbreak to the world.
The report led to renewed calls for a broader probe into whether Covid-19 could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, where the pandemic is widely believed to have begun.
Even the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci admitted that he was “not convinced” that the virus is naturally occurring.
Those involved in the probe that was shuttered say that it was an honest effort to look into whether China’s biological weapons program could have played a role in the pandemic’s origin, according to CNN.
Biden officials reportedly made the decision to shut down the probe after being briefed on the team’s findings in February and March of this year.
The inquiry reportedly led to internal turmoil in the department, as some viewed it as a way for the Trump administration to politicize and blame China for the global pandemic.
However, sources involved in the probe told CNN that their work was to examine scientific research and information objectively.
After news of Wuhan lab staffers falling ill broke, Trump said that he’s sure the Chinese institute is responsible for the pandemic.
“I think you can take the word ‘potential’ out that it came from the lab,” he told Fox Nation’s Dan Bognino on Monday.
