A recent investigative report has uncovered that a 2021 intelligence assessment, commissioned by President Joe Biden to determine the origins of Covid-19, was allegedly manipulated to align with the Biden-Harris administration’s debunked stance that the virus emerged naturally rather than from a Chinese laboratory leak.
The Wall Street Journal, in its December 26 article, revealed that critical conclusions from some of the U.S. government’s top biological weapons experts were omitted from President Biden’s briefing on the urgent 90-day review conducted in August 2021.
The FBI, led by microbiologist Jason Bannan, was the sole intelligence agency to determine that a lab leak in China was the most probable source of the virus, which led to over 1.2 million deaths in the U.S. and 30 million worldwide.
However, when senior intelligence officials presented their findings to Biden, the FBI was excluded from the briefing.
The reason? The FBI’s conclusion conflicted with the assessment of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and other senior officials, who asserted with “low confidence” that the first Covid-19 infection “was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus.”
The Wall Street Journal further reported that Biden was also briefed on a similar assessment from the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), a division of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) specializing in medical intelligence. However, because NCMI’s findings contradicted the DIA’s official stance that Covid-19 had a natural origin, its analysis was excluded from the agency’s commentary on the 90-day review.
Biden’s Intelligence Review Aimed to Undermine Trump’s Stance
President Biden’s decision to order the intelligence review was reportedly aimed at discrediting former President Donald Trump’s assertion that Covid-19 originated in a Wuhan laboratory due to Chinese government negligence, which allowed the virus to spark a global pandemic.
Biden sought assistance from U.S. intelligence agencies to push back against growing media coverage—including reports from CNN—acknowledging mounting evidence that Covid-19 may have leaked from a Wuhan lab and that the Chinese government engaged in an extensive cover-up.
This shift in media narrative posed a political problem for Biden, as it validated Trump’s stance and undercut Biden’s 2020 campaign claims that Trump mismanaged the pandemic.
Additionally, these revelations complicated Biden’s foreign policy approach to China, which has been criticized as overly lenient.
The U.S. intelligence community has faced scrutiny for allegedly tailoring its assessments to support Democratic administrations while undermining Republican presidents.
One of the most infamous cases was the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, led by then-CIA Director John Brennan, which falsely concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump secure the presidency.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Trump’s nominee for CIA Director, previously disclosed in January 2021 that intelligence analysts manipulated reports on potential election interference by Russia and China in 2020 to avoid producing findings that might benefit Trump’s reelection bid.
These instances highlight a pattern in which intelligence agencies have been used to advance political narratives under Democratic administrations, rather than providing objective analysis for national security.
The U.S. intelligence community was originally designed to deliver unbiased intelligence that aids presidential administrations in making informed security decisions—not to serve as a tool for political influence.
Significant reforms are needed to restore integrity to these agencies and ensure that intelligence assessments remain free from political bias.
President-elect Donald Trump, along with his intelligence nominees—Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe—are committed to implementing the necessary changes to depoliticize America’s intelligence agencies and restore their credibility.
