I noted before that the official 90-day review period Biden ordered on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic ends at the end of August.
The occupant of the Oval Office will be briefed Tuesday on the findings.
…Biden is expected to receive a briefing on the origin of COVID-19 from the intelligence community as early as Tuesday.The president announced in May that the U.S. intelligence community had “coalesced around two likely scenarios” for the origin of COVID-19, “including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident,” and asked for a follow-up report in 90 days.In March, Biden received a report on the pandemic’s origin that was inconclusive and revealed internal disagreement over whether the virus jumped from animal to human or leaked from a lab.
Already, administration officials are indicating the information offered will still not be conclusive.
…[T]hree U.S. government officials and a fourth person familiar with the scope of the investigation said they did not expect the review to lead to firm conclusions after China stymied earlier international efforts to gather key information on the ground.Instead, one official said the report would likely point to additional lines of inquiry that officials could pursue, including demands of China that are likely to further ratchet up tensions with Beijing at a time when the country’s ties with Washington are at their lowest point in decades.“It’s basically impossible to have a proper investigation if one of the main parties doesn’t want to cooperate,” said Thomas Wright, Brookings Institution senior fellow and co-author of “Aftershocks,” a book about the pandemic with Biden’s Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl. “We need to proceed as if both hypotheses are true.”
It appears, as in Afghanistan, the Biden Administration will surrender to China without a fight.
Lacking definitive answers, U.S. officials have suggested Mr. Biden may use the new intelligence report to frame new questions for Beijing. Many U.S. lawmakers also are pressing the issue and are calling for a 9-11 style commission.But a senior Biden administration official acknowledged: “We don’t have a silver bullet to get China to open up.”
I offer the timeline I developed from the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Relations as highly suggestive of where the pandemic began. I would say the analysis is as close to conclusive as anyone can reasonably achieve under the circumstances.
The administration’s weak responses will embolden China further…perhaps inspiring even more innovative biochemical research in the 25-30 new facilities it’s planning to build.
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