‘Dead bodies at Wuhan lab’: Donald Trump’s explosive revelation

Donald Trump has made the explosive claim that dead bodies were dumped outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, while the former US director of ­national intelligence says the first Chinese scientists to fall sick with Covid-19 are now missing.

Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci at the White House in April last year. Picture: Getty Images

Donald Trump has made the explosive claim that there were dead bodies dumped outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, while the former US director of ­national intelligence says the first Chinese scientists to fall sick with Covid-19 are now missing.

Those allegations – aired in the Sky News Australia documentary What Really Happened in Wuhan – follow separate claims from former secretary of state Mike Pompeo that intelligence suggested the first incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have occurred as early as July or August 2019 – five months before China admitted to the World Health Organisation there was an outbreak.

The Australian can also reveal that the Wuhan Institute of ­Virology purchased a coronavirus testing PCR machine on November 6, 2019 in a spending spree that also involved beefing up its security, replacing its air-ventilation system and buying a new air medical waste incinerator. The spending spree kicked off on September 12, 2019 – the very same day that the ­institute deleted its virus database containing the genetic sequences of 22,000 coronaviruses.

The PCR purchase is contained in tender documents that were virtually expunged from the internet and recovered by cyber security firm Internet 2.0 and China analyst Luke McWilliams during an investigation for the book What Really Happened in Wuhan, the basis for the documentary.

Sharri Markson interviews Donald Trump for the Sky News documentary What Really Happened in Wuhan.

The book details how the Wuhan Institute of Virology issued a tender for a “fluorescence quantitative PCR instrument” on November 6, 2019, offering to pay up to $US52,000.

The winning bid, from Wuhan Bai Lei Zhen Biological Technology, came in under budget, at $US48,000, a mere two weeks after the tender was issued on the Hubei Guohua Tendering Consulting website. The last time a PCR machine had appeared in the tender data was 2017.

Also on September 12, the day the institute pulled its virus database offline, it put out a tender for security services worth about $US128,000.

On October 18, the Wuhan Institute of Virology put out a tender for a security-monitoring system. Ultimately, it spent more than half a million dollars on new security.

John Ratcliffe, who oversaw 18 agencies in his role as US director of national intelligence from 2020-21, described the PCR purchase as “highly significant” and said it was “another compelling piece of evidence” indicating the virus leaked from the institute.

In an interview for the Sky News Australia documentary, Mr Trump claimed he was presented with evidence that there were dead bodies outside the Wuhan laboratory. He was not able to ­verify this information.

“Well, I started hearing stories, that you have also, that there were lots of body bags outside of the lab,” he said. “I heard that a long time ago. And if they did in fact have body bags, that was one little indication, wasn’t it?”

Pressed on who told him about the body bags and whether it was sourced from intelligence agencies, Mr Trump said: “I don’t know where it came from, ask China … But you’re going to have to figure that out – and you will probably be able to do it, knowing you.”

Mr Pompeo said he was unable to speak publicly about Mr Trump’s claims bodies had been dumped outside the institute.

The P4 laboratory building at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. Picture: AFP

“I don’t want to talk about particular things presidents get the chance to talk about, things that some of the rest of us can’t,” he said. “But there was enormous, albeit indirect evidence, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the centre point for this.”

In the same answer, Mr Pompeo spoke about the US officials in Wuhan at the time who had awareness of the activities at the institute, indicating the US had eyes on the laboratory and perhaps would have been able to see if bodies had been dumped there.

“There were 14 American diplomats on the ground in Wuhan at this time for the duration of this. There were American officials on the ground who were watching and observing what was taking place inside of Wuhan,” he said.

“Now I hope one day that we’ll be able to get that information out more broadly, but as I come back to it, the cumulative evidence that one could see points singularly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” Mr Trump also said he was told a scientist at the laboratory was infected with Covid-19 and spread it to his girlfriend over lunch.

“A scientist walked out and had lunch outside in a park or something with the girlfriend and he had it and she had it,” he said.

“I think it was incompetence. I think it escaped from the lab through incompetence. And they also had some safety problems, as you know, at that lab.”

Mr Trump said this scientist was patient “zero or patient something else, but that’s one theory”.

He said it was his strong opinion that Covid-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Some of the intelligence is classified and I can’t talk about it but it most likely, and when I say most likely – like 95 per cent – came from the Wuhan lab,” he said. “I don’t know if they had bad thoughts or whether it was gross incompetence, but one way or the other it came out of Wuhan – it came from the Wuhan lab.”

Mr Ratcliffe said the intelligence indicated Wuhan Institute of Virology workers fell sick with Covid-19 in October 2019 – not November, as The Australian first reported in March this year.

He said the intelligence indicated they were the first cluster of the pandemic and some had now gone missing.

“What Mike Pompeo and I put out is people became sick at the lab in October and with symptoms that became entirely consistent with what most people have experienced around the world from Covid-19,” Mr Ratcliffe said.

Mr Pompeo said: “Based on everything I’ve seen, this was the first cluster.”

 

Asked if these sick scientists survived or died, Mr Ratcliffe said: “What I can say is that, from the ­intelligence perspective, we know that some of the people who were most involved – either infected, or reporting on, or whistleblowing on, or trying to get answers and journalists reporting on – have been difficult to track down later, at least from my time there.

“And so I think that’s consistent with what the Chinese Communist Party does. The status of those individuals and why they have disappeared, I really can’t comment on that,” he added.

Mr Ratcliffe also revealed that much of what scientists such as Anthony Fauci and EcoHealth ­Alliance president Peter Daszak was telling the US intelligence agencies proved to be incorrect.

“We looked at what certain scientists were saying, matching it with intelligence,” he said.

“And when it didn’t match up, we were questioning it. As we looked more closely at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what a lot of scientists like Dr Fauci and Peter Daszak were saying was, ‘There’s no live bats there, there’s no gain of function research there, there’s no military there’. And we had intelligence telling us that all of those things were occurring there.”

The Australian first revealed that there were bats housed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – contrary to claims that had been made by World Health Organisation ­investigators.

When asked whether there were defectors at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who had given classified information to United States intelligence agencies, Mr Trump said: “Yeah, I cannot talk about that … I won’t really be ­allowed to talk. I know that I want to.”

The former head of British spy agency MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, said in the Sky documentary that he was advised not to get involved in this issue by senior figures in the British agencies.

What Really Happened In Wuhan by Sharri Markson is available for pre-order from Booktopia