Senate Republicans demanded transparency and accountability in response to reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded COVID-19 most likely originated from a Chinese lab leak.
The reports, published by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times on Sunday, revealed that new classified intelligence had prompted the department to join the FBI in concluding that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a lab leak in Wuhan, China. The department, which was previously undecided on the issue, had made the determination with"low confidence," according to both reports.Sen.
Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted that he planned to reintroduce legislation requiring the U.S. government to declassify intelligence on the COVID-19 outbreak. The Missouri senator introduced a bill in 2021 requiring the Biden administration to release all intelligence on the Wuhan lab in question. The theory that COVID-19 came from an accidental lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was widely dismissed as disinformation in the early stages of the pandemic. It gained traction in May 2021 when the Wall Street Journal reported that three employees at the Wuhan lab were hospitalized in November 2019, just before the outbreak began.
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