House unanimously votes to declassify COVID-19 origins intel

WASHINGTON — A little more than a week after the Senate passed it by unanimous consent, the House on Friday sent to the president legislation that would declassify information related to the origin of COVID-19.

The bill, which passed the House 419-0, would require the director of national intelligence to declassify any information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and the origin of the virus, which has killed millions of people across the world.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been at the center of a theory that the virus originated from a lab leak, with some members of the intelligence community finding that theory possible, while others insist the likeliest culprit is animal-to-human transmission.

“The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic, including how this virus was created and specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab related event,” said Republican Rep. Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The bill would require Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify the information within 90 days of passage, including any information related to activities at the institute performed with or on behalf of the Chinese military, information about coronavirus-related research at the facility before the pandemic and researchers who became ill in the fall of 2019.

Democrats also supported the bill, with Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the intelligence panel, highlighting the divisions in the intelligence community on the origins of the virus.

In late February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Energy found with “low confidence” that evidence favors the theory that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab.

But others in the community have said with low confidence the virus was most likely caused by natural exposure to an infected animal.

“The intelligence community remains focused on this question, and I hope that we will have a breakthrough that will allow us to answer these questions once and for all,” Himes said. “But today, we’re not there yet. I believe that the IC [intelligence community] should make as much public as they can, consistent with the overriding need to protect sources and methods.”

CUTLINE CREDIT GOES HERE This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory, at left, on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world’s most dangerous diseases. A bill passed unanimously by both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives would declassify certain information related to the origin of COVID-19, with the aim of either confirming or ruling out if the lab played any role in the pandemic. The bill is on its way to the desk of President Joe Biden.