Whistleblower alleges CIA offered officials money to change view of COVID origins

[30CAT]

Just more news of the Democrat agenda being pushed by the weaponized CIA

Democrats, their policies and their bleaters are destroying our country

LINK: Intel community has not concluded whether COVID was spurred by a lab leak or natural exposure

A CIA whistleblower told Congress that the agency offered officials on a team investigating COVID-19 origins "significant monetary incentive" to change their positions, from that it originated out of a leak from the Wuhan lab to "unable to determine" the origins, Fox News Digital has learned.

Fox News Digital obtained letters House Coronavirus Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner sent to the CIA and a former official.

"The Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have received new and concerning whistleblower testimony regarding the Agency’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19," Wenstrup and Turner wrote to CIA Director William Burns Tuesday.

"A multi-decade, senior-level, current Agency officer has come forward to provide information to the Committees regarding the Agency’s analysis into the origins of COVID-19," they wrote.

The whistleblower told Congress that the CIA assigned seven officers to a COVID Discovery Team, which consisted of "multi-disciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise."

"According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed that intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China," Wenstrup and Turner wrote.

"The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the one officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis."

"The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position," they said.

Wenstrup and Turner said the allegations come from "a seemingly credible source," and requires the committees to conduct further oversight of "how the CIA handled its internal investigation into the origins of COVID-19."

The lawmakers set a deadline of Sept. 26, 2023 for the CIA to turn over all records regarding the establishment of the COVID Discovery Teams; records regarding communications from those teams; all documents and records involving CIA communications with all members of federal government agencies including the FBI, State Department, Health and Human Services, Energy Department and more.

The lawmakers are also asking for documents and communications regarding "the pay history, to include the awarding of any type of financial or performance-based incentive/financial bonus to members of all iterations of the COVID Discovery Teams."

Wenstrup and Turner wrote in a separate letter to the former chief operating officer at the CIA, Andrew Makridis, saying that the whistleblower suggested he "played a central role in its formation and eventual conclusion that the CIA was unable to determine" the origins of COVID-19."

Wenstrup and Turner requested Makridis participate in a "voluntary transcribed interview on Sept. 26, 2023."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in June released a declassified COVID-19 origins report to members of Congress, which analyzed the U.S. intelligence community’s understanding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the center of the theory that the pandemic could have come from a lab leak.

The intelligence community has not come to a conclusion on whether the pandemic was spurred by a lab leak or from "natural exposure" by an infected animal—like at one of the wet markets in China.

"All agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection," report said.

The National Intelligence Council and several other intelligence community agencies have assessed that natural contact with a wild animal was the cause, while the Energy Department and the FBI believe COVID-19 originated from a lab leak.

The report said the CIA and another unnamed agency haven't come to a conclusion, "as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting."

But "almost all" of the agencies have assessed it was not "genetically engineered" and the entire intelligence community agrees that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was "not developed as a biological weapon."

 

[30CAT]

Fear of open debate about COVID vaccines likely led to public hesitancy, ex-CDC director says

LINK: Former Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said Monday there was an attempt within the health care bureaucracy to stifle talk that coronavirus vaccinations may not have been a cure-all.

Redfield made the comments on "The Story" following a court ruling the Pedo administration violated the First Amendment in trying to pressure social media companies to suppress countervailing COVID-19 content.

The suit, brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, alleged the Biden administration threatened social media companies with antitrust lawsuits or legal changes that either protect their liability or silence dissenting voices.

Redfield said he was not a firsthand witness to concerns over negative public discussion about vaccinations causing Americans to eschew the injection, but knew of individuals who were.

Discourse to that effect was very often the subject of the purported censorship that critics have highlighted since the pandemic first erupted.

"I always said… my position was just tell the American public the truth: There are side effects to vaccines. Tell them the truth and don't try to package it," Redfield said.

Redfield added that the idea of "complete immunize[ation]" is "false perception" and that there has never been a complete immunization.

"There was such an attempt to not let anybody get any hint that maybe vaccines weren't foolproof, which, of course, we now know they have significant limitations," he said.

The Trump-era former official went on to conclude that the perception of a lack of honest discourse may have led to vaccine hesitancy – and that vaccine "mandates" caused the same deterioration in public trust.

"I think we should have really confidence and not be afraid to debate the issues that we think are in the public's interest and just tell the public the truth," he went on.

In the federal court ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declared President Biden, the CDC, the FBI and the U.S. Surgeon General, cannot force social media companies to remove content it believes is problematic.

hat issue also came to a head in House hearings featuring two of the journalists involved in disseminating the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi and former California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger. The files revealed communications between the feds and companies like X – formerly known as Twitter.

In the circuit court's ruling, it appeared to give the Pedo administration a small victory in that it tossed a Louisiana judge's determination the government couldn't contact platforms to issue takedown requests.

 

[roadtrasheer]

Fear of open debate about COVID vaccines likely led to public hesitancy, ex-CDC director says

LINK: Former Centers for Disease Control & Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said Monday there was an attempt within the health care bureaucracy to stifle talk that coronavirus vaccinations may not have been a cure-all.

Redfield made the comments on "The Story" following a court ruling the Pedo administration violated the First Amendment in trying to pressure social media companies to suppress countervailing COVID-19 content.

The suit, brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, alleged the Biden administration threatened social media companies with antitrust lawsuits or legal changes that either protect their liability or silence dissenting voices.

Redfield said he was not a firsthand witness to concerns over negative public discussion about vaccinations causing Americans to eschew the injection, but knew of individuals who were.

Discourse to that effect was very often the subject of the purported censorship that critics have highlighted since the pandemic first erupted.

"I always said… my position was just tell the American public the truth: There are side effects to vaccines. Tell them the truth and don't try to package it," Redfield said.

Redfield added that the idea of "complete immunize[ation]" is "false perception" and that there has never been a complete immunization.

"There was such an attempt to not let anybody get any hint that maybe vaccines weren't foolproof, which, of course, we now know they have significant limitations," he said.

The Trump-era former official went on to conclude that the perception of a lack of honest discourse may have led to vaccine hesitancy – and that vaccine "mandates" caused the same deterioration in public trust.

"I think we should have really confidence and not be afraid to debate the issues that we think are in the public's interest and just tell the public the truth," he went on.

In the federal court ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declared President Biden, the CDC, the FBI and the U.S. Surgeon General, cannot force social media companies to remove content it believes is problematic.

hat issue also came to a head in House hearings featuring two of the journalists involved in disseminating the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi and former California gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger. The files revealed communications between the feds and companies like X – formerly known as Twitter.

In the circuit court's ruling, it appeared to give the Pedo administration a small victory in that it tossed a Louisiana judge's determination the government couldn't contact platforms to issue takedown requests.

My biggest problem with it all was the 1/2 truths and word salads. It was plain to see that things was not as government was saying.