President Joe Biden has signed a bipartisan bill that will declassify all intelligence concerning the origins of the COVID-19 virus.
On Monday, the president signed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, otherwise known as S. 619.
The legislation passed in both chambers of Congress earlier this month, receiving a unanimous vote in the Senate on March 2 and another unanimous vote in the House on March 10. The bill’s passage came soon after the Department of Energy and FBI Director Christopher Wray concluded with “low” and “moderate confidence” respectively that COVID had likely originated from a lab in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
While the left and their allies in the mainstream media have consistently referred to the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy theory since the pandemic began, conservatives and other skeptics have been arguing that it is the only plausible explanation for some time now. The blatant refusal by the left to consider this theory has led to demands for increased transparency surrounding intelligence reports and other information about the pandemic’s origin.
Biden released a statement on Monday about his decision to sign the bill.
“Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the ‘COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,’” the statement read. “I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics.”
“My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” the statement concluded.
INBOX: @POTUS has signed the bill declassifying Covid origins information, says he will “declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security”. pic.twitter.com/tEIF4inHuN
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) March 20, 2023
The bill was reintroduced on February 27 by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mike Braun (R-IN).
Meanwhile, China has condemned the decision — with the Chinese Embassy sending a statement to Hawley’s office that accused Congress of trying to “politicize and stigmatize China.”
“The move by the US Congress just shows that the US is going further and further down the wrong path of political manipulation. The so-called traceability report by the US intelligence agency is an attempt to ‘presume guilt’ on China. It is an attempt to shift the blame from its own failure to fight the epidemic to China,” government official Li Xiang wrote.
SCOOP: A Chinese govt official sent this letter to the office of Sen. @HawleyMO yesterday, criticizing Congress for the COVID Origin Act that he introduced in late February pic.twitter.com/yJPsk9Zxok
— Liz Elkind (@liz_elkind) March 9, 2023
