Double whammy: Two new reports point to Biden Pentagon cover-up on COVID-19 origins search

Two new bombshell reports this week pointed to a cover-up by the Biden-era Pentagon related to the search for COVID-19’s origins. New information is spilling out years after the fact and pointing to Wuhan and its coronavirus lab as the origin of the pandemic all along.

First, a newly-released Department of Defense (DoD) report, made public only in recent days by the Trump-led Pentagon, showed that the Defense Department never formally investigated the possibility that U.S. service members may have been infected with COVID-19 during the World Military Games in Wuhan in the fall of 2019.

In addition, a newly-released analysis by a unit of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), made public through the Freedom of Information Act only this week, showed that the DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) believed early on in the pandemic that a Wuhan lab leak was plausible despite efforts by allies of Dr. Anthony Fauci to dismiss the possibility.

The new details on the Biden-era Pentagon’s failure to investigate clues pointing to the fall 2019 emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, and the revelations about the DIA unit’s analysis pointing to a Wuhan lab leak were first reported by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health research group.

The newly-published Defense Department report on the Wuhan Military Games was written in 2022 in response to congressional demands that the Pentagon investigate reports that U.S. military athletes got sick with COVID-19 after they participated in competitions in October 2019 in the city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.

The public report — now released after more than two years — concluded that there was no significant uptick at military bases tied to the participating athletes, but also revealed that the Pentagon had not tested the service members for COVID-19 nor for antibodies, admitting that “DoD has not conducted or opened an investigation into connections between the outbreak of COVID-19 and the 2019 World Military Games.”

The DIA NCMI’s newly public analysis — dated June 25, 2020 — concluded that “the molecular biology capabilities of [the Wuhan lab] and genome assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus.” The NCMI analysis, which took nearly five years to be made public, said the available evidence even early on was consistent with COVID-19 emerging via lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was led by so-called “bat woman” Shi Zheng-li, with the U.S. medical defense scientists stating SARS-CoV-2 could have been “part of a bank of chimeric viruses in Zhen-Li Shi’s lab at WIV that escaped containment.”

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

“It has been clear for some time that all informed scientists — without exception — believed by early 2020 that COVID likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, but that most chose to lie for five years,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, told Just the News. “Over the last two months, it has become clear that U.S., UK, and German intelligence agencies — without exception — also knew by early 2020 that COVID-19 likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, and also chose to lie for five years.”

The Wuhan Military Games

The Defense Department report, put together by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and submitted to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in December 2022, cost only $4,070 to compile — perhaps unsurprising given that the DoD admitted it had not conducted any formal investigation of links between the U.S. service members and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. The report, including the cover page, is three pages long.

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded in August 2021 that the military games in Wuhan were “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China then covering it up for months.

Robert Redfield, Trump’s former director of the Centers for Disease Control, had said in March 2021 that COVID-19 “most likely” originated at the Wuhan lab and that it spread in the Chinese city in September or October 2019.

The 2022 DoD report added that “DoD has not engaged in any discussions with allied or partner militaries about illness associated with participation in the 2019 World Military Games” either.

The report did show that the U.S. military’s delegation to Wuhan consisted of 173 athletes and 90 coaches and staff — with a total of 219 being military personnel — and that “7 Service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms during the timeframe of October 18, 2019 through January 21, 2020.” The report noted that “the COVID-19-like symptoms could have been caused by other respiratory infections” and stated that “all 7 Service members’ symptoms resolved within 6 days.”

Participating service members not tested

The DoD report said that “the military facilities supporting Service members from the 2019 World Military Games reported no outbreaks of COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms shortly upon returning” but that “Service members were not tested for COVID-19 or antibodies due to their participation in the 2019 World Military Games, as testing was not available at this early stage of the pandemic.” The DoD provided no clarity on whether the U.S. military members were ever tested.

“Data surveillance reports from military treatment facilities indicate no statistically significant difference in COVID-19-like symptoms cases at installations with participating athletes when compared to installations without them,” the report stated. “In addition, no significant increase in COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms was documented for the dates of October 2019 through March 2020 as a result of U.S. Army separate surveillance testing.”

This newly-public report was quietly released on the Military One Source website — which is designed as a “Support for Military Personnel & Their Families” — years after Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022, which told the Defense Department, then led by Secretary Lloyd Austin, that the report “shall be submitted in unclassified form and made publicly available on an internet website in a searchable format.”

While it was submitted to a House and a Senate committee in late December 2022, the report wasn’t uploaded to be viewed by the public until sometime in late March of this year after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had taken the reins.

GOP: Wuhan Games were a “super-spreader”

The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee report was completed more than a year before the DoD finally made their report public. Then-Chairman Michael McCaul said at the time: “Satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19. At the same time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home countries — creating one of the earliest super-spreader events in the world, and explaining how countries who participated in the games had reported cases as early as November 2019.”

The Republican report said its lab leak evidence included “athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after.”

The GOP report zeroed in on the city of Wuhan, which was picked to host the 7th International Military Sports Council Military World Games in October 2019, during which “more than 9,000 military personnel from over 100 countries stayed in Wuhan in accommodations at an athletes village built specifically for the games.”

The Chinese state-run China Internet Information Center said in October 2019 there were athletes from 109 countries. China’s Organizing Committee of the 7th International Military Sports Council proclaimed that “the charm of sports will put Wuhan in global spotlight [sic].”

The Republican report noted that “four countries who sent delegations” to the Wuhan games “have now confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 cases within their borders in November and December 2019” — Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France — with some of the athletes complaining of COVID-like symptoms in Wuhan.

The World Health Organization’s joint report with China in early 2021 said the Chinese Epidemiology Group, which provided information on the Wuhan games, allegedly found that “no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified.” But the report added that “the joint team recommends that consideration be given to further joint review of the data on respiratory illness from the on-site clinics at the Military Games in October 2019.”

The report’s meeting minutes from discussions between Wuhan lab scientists and the WHO-China team also revealed that lab leak concerns were dismissed as “rumors,” “myths,” and “conspiracy theories.”

Chinese disinformation points to U.S. military base

The Chinese government for years has continued to deflect from the Wuhan lab leak possibility by pushing a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated from a U.S. military base. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian and others pushed the baseless claims about the U.S. military, including Maryland’s Fort Detrick, starting in early 2020.

Zhao shared an article in March 2020 from Global Research, tweeting: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.” The Chinese official also tweeted that month: “When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!” Global Research has been described by the U.S. State Department as “deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”

Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in March 2020 that China’s claims were “completely absurd.” And the Pentagon’s “Coronavirus: Rumor Control” website said early in the pandemic that it was a “myth” that “U.S. service members visiting China were the source of the coronavirus outbreak.”

Then-Rep. Mike Gallagher also wrote Lloyd Austin a letter seeking answers in June 2021, saying, “Aware that the cluster of illnesses associated with the World Military Games casts doubt upon the Chinese Communist Party’s official timeline, Chinese government officials such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian have sought to deflect blame onto the U.S.”

The GOP report from August 2021 emphasized, “If the CCP realized an investigation would show an uptick in visits of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in September, October, and November of 2019, this would likely be the actions they would take to cover up the source of those illnesses.”

The Republican report added: “To further drive this narrative, CCP-controlled media outlets accused Maatje Benassi, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, as being ‘patient zero.’ Benassi competed at the Military World Games without becoming ill … Two weeks after Zhao tweeted that the U.S. army brought the virus to Wuhan, the Global Times amplified the narrative.” Global Times is not considered state-run media, but has been criticized for publishing “Pro-Chinese government propaganda” 

After then-FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed in early 2023 that the FBI had long assessed that a lab leak was the most likely origin for COVID-19, the Chinese government returned to its efforts to shift blame to the U.S. military.

“At present, more and more clues from the international science community are pointing the origins of virus to sources around the world. Many have raised questions and concerns about US bio-military bases at Fort Detrick and around the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in March 2023.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also responded to the CIA’s new assessment earlier this year that the U.S. spy agency had “low confidence” leaning toward a lab leak hypothesis by arguing that “the U.S. needs to stop politicizing and weaponizing origins-tracing at once, and stop scapegoating others” and attempting to point the finger at “relevant U.S. biological labs.”

Pentagon leadership: “No knowledge”

In April 2020, when Trump’s then-defense secretary, Mark Esper, was asked about COVID-19 and the Wuhan military games in April 2020, he replied, “I’m not aware of what you’re talking about.” The then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, also said, “Yeah, I’m not.”

It was also reported by The Prospect in June 2020 that, in response to questions about the Wuhan games, a Pentagon spokesperson “issued a terse email response to the question, saying there was no screening because the event” held in October 2019 “was prior to the reported outbreak.” The outlet said the Pentagon spokesperson “cited December 31, 2019, as the critical outbreak day and that no testing was deemed necessary for any possible exposure prior to February 1, 2020.”

Then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby also reportedly told The Washington Post in June 2021 that “the Defense Department has no knowledge of Covid-19 infections among U.S. troops participating in the 2019 World Military Games,” with the outlet adding that Kirby “said that there’s no evidence U.S. military personnel were infected before travel restrictions the U.S. government implemented in early 2020.”

But as the newly-released Defense Department report revealed, the Biden Pentagon never formally investigated this saga.

Scientists within DIA pointed to a Wuhan lab leak

The second bombshell related to a never before seen June 2020 analysis by scientists within the DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence. The dozens of pages of slides — titled “SARS-COV-2 Genome Analysis” and dated June 25, 2020 — were only released after FOIA litigation this week.

“The molecular biology capabilities of [Wuhan lab] & genome assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus that was part of a bank of chimeric viruses in Zhen-Li Shi’s lab at WIV that escaped containment,” the medical intelligence scientists assessed.

U.S. Right to Know, which filed the Freedom of Information requests, said that the authors of the military analysis are not listed, but that they obtained the slides in response to FOIA requests seeking assessments authored by scientists Robert Greg Cutlip, John Hardham, and Jean-Paul Chretien — all of whom had worked for the DIA’s NCMI.

Cutlip was employed by the DIA from 2010 to 2021 and also worked for the Institute for Defence Analyses. He is currently listed as the Director of Cybersecurity and Data Analytics Programs at Fairmont State University. Hardham’s LinkedIn page says that he is now a research director at the Center for Transboundary and Emerging Diseases at Zoetis.

Chretien’s LinkedIn page states that he was the chief of pandemic warning at the Defense Department from August 2017 to August 2020, was at DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from August 2020 to January 2025, and has been at Renaissance Philanthropy since then. He wrote on LinkedIn last year that he was “leading DIA’s Pandemic Warning Team when COVID came to light.”

In the material released, the scientists noted that there were “a large bank of Bat Coronaviruses” at the Wuhan lab. And the analysis also noted that the Wuhan lab conducted experiments at lower “biosafety level 2” conditions, and said this “would make an accidental release” of an infectious bat coronavirus such as COVID-19 “more likely.” The analysis pointed out that “Chinese labs have had a history of virus escapes from BSL-2 laboratories.” 

The analysis also cited statements that “bat lady” Shi Zheng-Li had made in the past about the low biosafety conditions in which she conducted her risky experiments.

“Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”

The ​​influential scientific Proximal Origin paper was published just over five years ago, scoffing at the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails show Dr. Anthony Fauci, the now-former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “prompted” the writing of that influential article.

Scientists who consulted with the U.S. government early in the pandemic in 2020 believed it was possible or even likely that COVID-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, yet emails indicate Fauci and Collins worked to shut the hypothesis down.

The Proximal Origin article was written by five scientists: Kristian Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert Garry. Andersen, a Scripps Research professor, wrote to Nature magazine in February 2020 that he and other scientists had been “prompted” to do so by Fauci, Collins and Farrar.

The widely cited article published in Nature magazine in March 2020 was titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” and contended that SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged through “natural selection” and not through a lab leak, casting doubt on the possibility that COVID-19 originated at a Wuhan lab. 

The scientists wrote that “our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus” and that “it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.” Multiple scientists who signed onto the letter had received millions of dollars in NIH funding.

Professor Richard Ebright told Just the News that the Proximal Origin paper was “a product of scientific misconduct, up to and including fraud.” Ebright assessed that the paper “played a crucial role in establishing the false narrative that science rules out a lab origin of COVID” and noted that “formal requests for retraction of the paper have been submitted.”

The military scientists shoot down Fauci-prompted “Proximal Origin”

NCMI experts Robert Greg Cutlip and Navy Cmdr. Jean-Paul Chretien also wrote a working paper — published May 26, 2020 — which poked holes in the claims made by the Fauci-allied scientists. It, too, was not made public until years later.

The bombshell paper was titled “Critical Analysis of Anderson et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” and was only released when GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup, the chairman of the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, made it public in 2023.

The military scientists argued: “We highlight the features of SARS-CoV-2, noted by Anderson et al, are consistent with longstanding and ongoing laboratory experiments; the evidence Anderson et al. present does not lessen the plausibility of laboratory origin.”

“We consider the evidence they [Andersen et al] present and find that it does not prove that the virus arose naturally,” the NCMI report stated. “In fact, the features of SARS-CoV-2 noted by Anderson et al. are consistent with another scenario: that SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a laboratory, by methods that leading coronavirus researchers commonly use to investigate how the viruses infect cells and cause disease, assess the potential for animal coronaviruses to jump to humans, and develop drugs and vaccines.”

DIA and ODNI leadership kept reports under wraps

Multiple reports have also emerged that the NCMI analysis pointing to a possible Wuhan lab leak was not allowed to be shared outside of the DIA medical unit and was not included in broader analyses by the U.S. intelligence community.

It was reported by The Australian in 2023 that the 2020 papers by the NCMI scientists “pointing to a lab leak were blocked from wide dissemination.” The outlet said that the DIA paper critiquing the paper authored by Fauci-allied scientists “wasn’t allowed to be released to the American public.”

The report added: “A source said DIA scientists, the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, CIA, FBI’s WMD unit, and the Army Medical ­Research Institute of Infectious Diseases all agreed COVID-19 was not a natural virus. But in 2021, NCMI was blocked by DIA leadership from sharing info with the FBI.” A director at NCMI reportedly told the scientists in July 2021: “You may not speak with the FBI WMD anymore. They are off the reservation on this.”

The outlet also contended that Biden’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence — led by Avril Haines — whitewashed or ignored evidence from DIA scientists when putting together the summary of what the U.S. intel community allegedly believed about COVID-19 origins. “They said the information was too technical to include in the ODNI assessment,” an unnamed source told the outlet. “When the scientists saw the final document, they wondered were did all their edits go?”

It was then reported by The Wall Street Journal in December of last year that the NCMI analysis “was at odds with the assessment of their parent agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and wasn’t incorporated in the report presented to Biden.” The WSJ said that NCMI scientists — Hardham, Cutlip and Chretien — wrote the May 2020 lab leak paper but “weren’t allowed to circulate it outside of the medical intelligence center.” The outlet also reported that NCMI scientists “were instructed by a superior at the medical intelligence center not to continue sharing their work with the FBI.” The WSJ also reported that “the DIA Inspector General’s office opened an inquiry in the spring into whether the scientists’ assessment was mishandled or suppressed.”

Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who has since left his position as director of the DIA, spoke to the Senate in May 2022 about COVID-19’s origins, making no mention of the lab leak analyses within the DIA’s medical unit.

“Limited and fragmentary data has led the Intelligence Community (IC) to maintain multiple theories on the origin of COVID-19,” Berrier testified. “Four elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that the virus likely emerged from a natural interaction between an animal infected with the virus and a human; one IC element assesses with moderate confidence a laboratory origin is more likely and three 38 other IC elements are unable to arrive at either conclusion without additional information. All agencies agree the virus was not developed as a biological weapon and most agree that it was not genetically engineered.” Berrier joined Booz Allen as the senior vice president in the company’s national security business in June 2024. He did not respond to a request for comment that Just the News made through his company.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., sent a December 2024 letter to the DIA’s watchdog, telling him that “I am interested in the findings of the OIG’s inquiry as to whether the NCMI’s findings were appropriately included in briefings to President Biden and senior policy makers.” The DIA inspector general did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

By most accounts, the Biden Administration largely failed or refused to shed further light on the origins of COVID-19. Then-President Biden signed into law the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023” and claimed that “my administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible.” Little key information was released during his presidency, and more and more reports are saying that important findings were suppressed.

Then-DNI Avril Haines released an assessment in August 2021 stating that at least one U.S. agency — revealed later to be the FBI — had “moderate confidence” that COVID-19 came from the lab, while four U.S. spy agencies and the National Intelligence Council believed with “low confidence” that COVID-19 most likely had a natural origin.

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray later confirmed that the FBI has long believed COVID-19 originated at a Chinese government lab. ODNI released in October 2021 a declassified version of the FBI’s arguments in a section titled “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis.” 

It was also revealed in 2023 that the Energy Department — home to advanced research facilities such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories — also believed with “low confidence” that the coronavirus started at a Wuhan lab.

EcoHealth Alliance calls lab origin a “conspiracy theory”

Peter Daszak, the leader of the EcoHealth Alliance, steered large sums of U.S. taxpayer dollars from NIH funding to the Wuhan lab for bat virus research, a Government Accountability Office study showed. Science magazine noted that Daszak was a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan lab and its leader Shi Zhengli.

Daszak helped organize a February 2020 letter in The Lancet which praised China’s response and called the lab leak a conspiracy theory: “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin … Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear.”

Despite this, Fauci tried to argue to the BBC in 2022 that Daszak’s letter did not dismiss the lab leak hypothesis.

EcoHealth Alliance had proposed the creation at the Wuhan lab of a virus with features — such as a furin cleavage site — strikingly similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2. It was revealed by The Intercept that EcoHealth had sought funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for this project in 2018, but when the funding was rejected it appears the Wuhan lab moved forward anyway, just a year ahead of the first emergence of COVID-19.

Gabbard: “Bipartisan frustration”

A host of U.S. intelligence agencies still remain on the sidelines in the coronavirus origins debate.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said during her Senate confirmation in January that many senators had “expressed bipartisan frustration about recent intelligence failures and the lack of responsiveness to your requests for information” including related to “failures to identify the source of the COVID.” Gabbard announced on Tuesday the creation of the Director’s Initiatives Group which has been “reviewing documents for potential declassification — including information related to COVID-19 origins.”

“The DNI is dedicated to declassifying COVID-19 origins documents from across the IC,” a spokesperson for Gabbard told Just the News. “Her new Director’s Initiative’s Group will lead the charge. More coming soon.”

The CIA, now under Director John Ratcliffe, is walking a fine line. CBS News reported that the “CIA now says COVID most likely originated from a lab leak but has ‘low confidence’ in its assessment.” He revealed in January that “CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin” and at the same time, “that CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”

Ratcliffe had testified to Congress in 2023 that the CIA and other spy agencies had enough evidence to get off the fence and to join the FBI and Energy Department in concluding that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated at the Wuhan lab, and hinted that the U.S. intelligence community was holding back because of the significant ramifications such public conclusions would have for the U.S.-China relationship. Ratcliffe argued at the time that “a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science, and by common sense.”

The German Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND, reportedly also concluded that it was very likely that the pandemic emerged as an accidental lab release from the Wuhan lab, according to German news reports last month, but the BND was blocked from sharing their conclusions with the world.

“The current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth all promised before confirmation to declassify and release intelligence on the origin of COVID-19, as required by the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, but they have not yet done so. They need to move rapidly to do so,” Professor Ebright told Just the News. “And Avril Haines needs to be prosecuted — criminally prosecuted — for violating the law.”