Biden signs law requiring US intelligence release documents on COVID origins

Joe Biden signed on Monday a new law that could shed light on the links between the coronavirus pandemic and a Wuhan lab in China from which it stemmed.

The move requires all U.S. intelligence related to that link and the origins of COVID-19 to be declassified. 

‘We need to get to the bottom of Covid-19’s origins,’ Biden wrote in a statement. He noted any released material should also ‘include 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,’ he added.

President Joe Biden signed into law on Monday a bill that requires U.S. intelligence to release all materials related to the origins of COVID-19

This specifically would include declassifying intelligence related to links between the COVID-19 leak and the infamous lab from which it allegedly came in Wuhan, China

The bill passed unanimously in the House and the Senate before being passed along to the White House.

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Biden’s signature now instructs Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify any information the U.S. intelligence community has collected related to the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

The debate in Washington, D.C. over China intentionally leaking the virus from a lab in Wuhan was recently refueled. The Wall Street Journal reported last month the Energy Department assessed – albeit with low confidence – that the pandemic likely arose from the alleged Chinese laboratory leak.

Beijing denies this assessment.

The president claims that he believes in Congress’ goal of making available as much information as possible about where and how the coronavirus pandemic originated.

But he claimed that national security risks would still need to be assessed when it came to what his administration decides to release to the public.

‘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,’ Biden said in a statement on the declassification.

Lawmakers are engaged in a highly politicized debate over the origins of coronavirus, which plunged the world into a three-year pandemic since the first cases were reported in Wuhan in late 2019.

It comes as Republicans – and even some Democrats – have pushed Biden to be tougher on rising threats from China.