Race Jones
gangster. grace. alchemy
The debate over the virus’s origins has become increasingly rancorous since former president Donald Trump said last year that the virus originated in a Chinese lab. Efforts to understand the virus’s provenance have been complicated by Chinese authorities’ steadfast refusal to allow a more intensive inquiry by international investigators.
Biden’s directive came after he received a May report from the agencies saying that they had “coalesced around two likely scenarios” but had not reached a conclusion. He disclosed that two agencies leaned toward the hypothesis that the virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal, while a third leaned toward the lab accident scenario.
The leader of the intelligence community, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, cautioned in June that the agencies might not solve the mystery. “We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” she told Yahoo News in an interview. But, she said, “it’s challenging to do that,” adding that “it might happen, but it might not.”
