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C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins
New York Times ^ | January 25, 2025 | Julian E. Barnes

Posted on 01/25/2025 2:43:02 PM PST by Jim Noble

The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there.

But the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts saying they now favor the lab theory.

There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift, officials said. Rather it is based on the same evidence it has been chewing over for months.

The analysis, however, is based in part on a closer look at the conditions in the high security labs in Wuhan province before the pandemic outbreak, according to people familiar with the agency’s work...

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has long said he thought the pandemic originated in one of the Wuhan labs and praised the shift in judgment by the agency.

“Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Mr. Cotton said.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chinavirus; cia; covid; ecohealth; lableak; nih; wuhan
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Cotton is barking up the wrong tree. What's important about this story is the US end, the ban on gain-of-function work in 2014, the funding of Wuhan through EcoHealth, who knew what happened and when they knew it, and the complicated channels of influence over Congress and American scientists that has kept this story under the radar and therefore has made it the mother of conspiracy theories, some true, some not. It's not a China story. It's a USA story, and it needs to be investigated.
1 posted on 01/25/2025 2:43:02 PM PST by Jim Noble
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To: Jim Noble

A clue for the clueless


2 posted on 01/25/2025 2:44:49 PM PST by antidemoncrat ( )
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To: Jim Noble

But they wanted to arrest and jail people for saying it not that long ago.


3 posted on 01/25/2025 2:45:11 PM PST by Darksheare (Those who support liberal "Republicans" summarily support every action by same. )
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To: Jim Noble

Leak my butt


4 posted on 01/25/2025 2:47:34 PM PST by Fledermaus (SANITY RETURNS!)
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To: Jim Noble

governor ron desantis and the free state of florida proved the kung flu was a scam...


5 posted on 01/25/2025 2:52:16 PM PST by heavy metal (smiling improves your face value and makes people wonder what the hell you're up to... 😁 )
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To: antidemoncrat

So the original science wasn’t....settled?


6 posted on 01/25/2025 2:53:54 PM PST by fhayek
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To: Jim Noble
It's a USA story, and it needs to be investigated.

You are CORRECT.

But the Deep State never gets investigated.

If it did we'd know WHO gave the order to let Osama bin Laden live openly in Pakistan for as long as he did.

Because the intelligence agency of the greatest superpower on Planet Earth cannot credibly claim that it had no clue he was living there, can it?

7 posted on 01/25/2025 2:55:00 PM PST by Biblebelter
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To: Jim Noble
Cotton is barking up the wrong tree.

He does this often enough that I have to assume it is deliberate - he echoes what the Deep State wants conservatives to believe at any given moment.

8 posted on 01/25/2025 2:56:13 PM PST by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: Jim Noble

The CIA now says they believe the earth may in fact be round and the earth may travel around the sun.


9 posted on 01/25/2025 3:01:22 PM PST by pas
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To: Jim Noble; antidemoncrat

Reminds me of the CIA refusing to admit the NVA was shipping arms for III and IV Corp troops through Cambodia. Do they ever get it right?


10 posted on 01/25/2025 3:07:43 PM PST by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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To: Jim Noble

It would be more accurate to say “it is not just a China story”. A global pandemic was just about the only thing that could be used to prevent a 2nd Trump term so that is what we got.


11 posted on 01/25/2025 3:09:26 PM PST by iamgalt
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To: Jim Noble

My opinion has always been that poorly paid workers at Wuhan took animals after the lab was through with them and sold them at the wet market to supplement their income.


12 posted on 01/25/2025 3:18:26 PM PST by Engraved-on-His-hands
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To: Jim Noble; All

The CIA “suddenly” finds the evidence supports the “lab leak” theory after President Donald Trump is re-elected.

President Trump needs to clean house at the CIA.


13 posted on 01/25/2025 3:20:19 PM PST by marktwain
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To: iamgalt

A global pandemic was just about the only thing that could be used to prevent a 2nd Trump term so that is what we got.


That was precisely my first thought when the first stories about COVID started coming out.


14 posted on 01/25/2025 3:23:44 PM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Fledermaus
The really evil Warhawks in the intelligence and military communities figured out it was much easier to wage biological and chemical warfare by building level 5 biolabs in or near every country - city we have national interests in. Instead of dropping the weapons from airplanes, we just let out a few beagles and bats with lethal viruses in the locality.

These are Stephen King story level evil people. Going on unchecked, we will easily satisfy the Davos crowd by eliminating 2/3 of the deplorable masses around the globe. They will even call in the bioweapons on their own people for the sake of a "better world".

15 posted on 01/25/2025 3:30:46 PM PST by blackdog ((Z28.310) Be careful what you say. Your refrigerator may be listening & reporting you.)
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To: fhayek

The theory hadn’t been... debunked?


16 posted on 01/25/2025 3:32:27 PM PST by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
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To: antidemoncrat

TOO LITTLE

TOO LATE

NOT ENOUGH PUNISHMENT FOR FAUCI OR BIG PHARMA.


17 posted on 01/25/2025 3:37:53 PM PST by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: Jim Noble

Occam’s Razor.

It was obvious from the start.


18 posted on 01/25/2025 3:38:36 PM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Jim Noble

Nope. What’s important is that we acknowledge the epidemiological evidence that there was no deadly spreading virus, but that the fiction was created, with deadly, heavily incentivized and enforced, murderous, hospital protocols to create such an illusion.

Get to the bottom of that, repeal the PREP Act and so forth, and we’ll be beginning the stop of a more deadly repetition of the farce.


19 posted on 01/25/2025 3:48:26 PM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Jim Noble
“Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Mr. Cotton said.

China didn't unleash Covid.

This is who did..... C H I N A

20 posted on 01/25/2025 3:48:28 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (If Kansas City is the MidWest, then is St. Louis the Middle East ?)
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