GOP report claims possible COVID-19 ties with China program
(NewsNation) — In a newly released report, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee claim it is possible, but not certain, that COVID-19 originated from Chinese experimentation related to its biological weapons program.
Published overnight, House Republicans make a few key points in the report.
It confirms that China does have a military research arm that operates a biological weapons program.
The report says the intelligence community also knows China does research on SARS coronaviruses for its biological weapons program.
It also alleges China might have been doing that type of research in Wuhan.
The new report is critical of the intelligence community itself. House Republicans claim the intelligence community has not been transparent about its findings.
The intelligence community determined COVID-19 was likely not developed as a biological weapon.
But in this report, House Republicans say they were never given the information explaining how the intelligence community made that assessment.
What this report does not say is equally as important.
The report does not allege the Chinese military intentionally engineered COVID-19 as a biological weapon.
The report makes that very clear.
It’s the view of House Republicans that there is not enough information at this point to rule out an accidental lab leak stemming from biological weapons research.
No Republican in the Senate has endorsed this report so far. Nor have any Democrats in Congress.