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In Early 2020, A Chinese Source Trusted By FBI Said Covid Leaked From Wuhan Lab, Sources Say

In Early 2020, A Chinese Source Trusted By FBI Said Covid Leaked From Wuhan Lab, Sources Say

FBI’s entire 25-person Chinese intelligence squad knew of reliable human intelligence that SARS-CoV-2 Covid leaked from a lab

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Alex Gutentag
Jan 23, 2024
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In Early 2020, A Chinese Source Trusted By FBI Said Covid Leaked From Wuhan Lab, Sources Say
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FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on September 24, 2020, five months after the FBI allegedly received information that Covid resulted from a Wuhan, China lab leak. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images/Pool)

Over the last several months, Public has reported on a growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the Covid pandemic escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. Last year, Public and Racket were the first to report that US government officials had identified that the first patients to become sick with Covid worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Now, Public has learned from multiple sources that the FBI knew since at least March 2020 that Covid was the result of a lab leak. A Chinese national from Wuhan, working as a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI, told their handler at the FBI’s Chinese Intelligence Squad. The sources said it was probable that the whole squad of 25 people knew.

“A person working at the Virology Institute lab in Wuhan, China was infected, left the building, and spread the virus outside the lab in Wuhan,” the CHS told the FBI, according to a source. “It didn’t have anything to do with the wet market or the bat soup story they were going with.”

The sources asked Public to protect their identities and those of their colleagues. The sources say they are speaking up now out of concern over abuses of power within the FBI. They reached out to Public after seeing our story yesterday about how scientists, who Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) had in the past funded, sought to insert a furin cleavage site right where it exists on SARS-CoV-2.

The sources added that the FBI trusted the CHS because the person’s information had been corroborated at least three times previously. “The CHS was from Wuhan, had been vetted, and the person had provided information on three prior occasions that they were able to corroborate as true and reliable.”

Another source said the FBI had considered the information “good intel.”

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