Internet Morphs WSJ Article on 2021 IC Differences on Covid-19 Origin into “Cover-up”
Feature photo from China Daily.
On Friday December 27th, 2024, the Wall Street Journal published “U.S. Intelligence Review of Origins of Covid-19 Masked Deep Divisions,” (also titled “Behind closed Doors: The Spy-World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak”) reporting that the FBI was the only member of the IC with “moderate confidence” that Covid-19 was of laboratory origin yet was excluded from an intelligence community briefing ordered by President Biden in August 2021. That briefing sought discussion of two main hypotheses: (1) zoonotic transfer from animals to humans or (2) laboratory origin, implying viral outbreak from a lab leak.
The Wall Street Journal was not first to reveal FBI Microbiologist Jason Bannan’s differences with other government officials regarding the likelihood that Covid-19 had a laboratory origin. See the publicly posted Brookings Zoom call of May 2024 in which FBI’s Mr. Bannan lays out his reasoning Covid-19’s laboratory origin is more probable than zoonotic transmission to humans.
The Journal reported that Mr. Bannan had this to say in what was reportedly his first on-the-record interview:
Yet the Journal also reported the response from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that it was not customary to invite individual representatives of the agencies to such a briefing of the President and that: ‘the FBI assessment that pointed to a lab leak was accurately represented,’ that ‘divergent views within the intelligence community were fairly represented at the briefing,’ and that the ODNI and national Intelligence Council “complied with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity.”
In addition, the WSJ report also cites Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of government efforts to get control of the Covid-19 pandemic during the first Trump Administration, as having never ruled out the lab-leak hypothesis although openly favoring the zoonotic natural origin view.
Not Being Invited to a Briefing Versus a Coverup of One’s Documented View at a Briefing Are Two Different Things
Much rides on what was actually presented at the intelligence briefing to President Biden, how it was presented, what level of importance was accorded it, and why. Yet if the DNI’s office was truthful with WSJ, then President Biden heard the FBI laboratory origin argument at the briefing. Neither did the WSJ piece report that Jason Bannan alleged that the President did not hear an accurate representation of the FBI assessment.
If the lack of invitation to an FBI representative occurred while other agencies had representatives there, and if the FBI’s alternative hypothesis and supporting evidence was minimized and or omitted, then that would be a case of cooking an intelligence cake without all of the ingredients to make it rise to the level of quality that truly serves the American people and their constitutional government.
What International and Domestic Internet Information Shaping and Warfare Outlets Made of the Story
The top search results below tell a story of how Friday’s Wall Street Journal piece has morphed into a “cover-up” story of the FBI’s lab leak hypothesis regarding Covid-19, and considering WSJ’s News Corp ownership and conflicts raises yet again the issue of adopting false Russian intelligence narratives that would tarnish or destroy the legitimacy of the United States government for political gain and favor. After fully reading the Journal’s article here, weigh and consider how it was spun and misrepresented below (to include in some cases the spelling of the FBI scientist’s last name searched under both Bannon and the apparently accurate spelling Bannan):
Some Parting Thoughts on the Journal’s Story, the Internet’s Spin, and the Effects of the News Corp Spin
The reason President Joe Biden ordered the urgent intelligence community effort to determine Covid-19’s origins was largely due to China’s poor cooperation with World Health Organization inquiries into the virus’s origins, and inconclusive findings by the previous administration. China’s clear conflict of interest in controlling facts on the ground, investigating itself, and potentially losing face if its own biological laboratories were negligent or reckless gives greater credence to those who rejected World Health Organization’s initial investigation as dispositive.
That News Corp owns other outlets less professional in reporting than the Wall Street Journal, such as the New York Post, and other outlets taking license with the reported facts to make them into a “cover-up” or “buried report” story is highly interesting given the influence of Wendi Deng (formerly Murdoch) over past News Corp access to coveted Chinese markets, her intimate knowledge of News Corp from the inside, and the fact that she introduced Rupert Murdoch to his latest Russian American wife who happens to be a retired molecular biologist who immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1991.
Moreover, China and Russia have been working together in strategic competition and gray warfare against the United States and NATO while supporting proxies and weaponized migration against the U.S. and its free nation allies. China has supported Russia’s war on Ukraine. Russia and China have favored Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran over Israel before and after the attack on Israel of October 7, 2023.
The Department of Energy has since also joined the FBI in its assessment that a laboratory leak is the most likely Covid-19 origin, per the report. Neither did FBI Director Christopher Wray apparently try to influence or silence his own agency’s expert assessment of a laboratory origin as might ostensibly please some shadowy, favored Russian intelligence conspiracy story of an American ‘deep state.’ Rather, Director Wray openly backed his agency’s experts in February 2023. President Trump has chosen to constructively fire Christopher Wray as FBI Director by advance notice, and Mr. Wray resigned to avoid dragging the FBI into a politically partisan drama game as could do more damage to the perception of legitimacy of the United States government.
While China can be accused of covering-up and or delaying crucial Covid-19 pandemic information in 2019-21, News Corp’s reporting and editorial rinse and repeat cycles about Covid-19 serve to divert attention from Beijing’s culpability and drive blame narratives aimed at the internal American population and political arena.
