US Congress to probe claims Covid report was censored by intelligence community

The US congress is set to investigate revelations officials at the highest levels of the intelligence community censored the input of scientists who concluded Covid-19 was genetically engineered.

The P4 laboratory (left) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. US President Joe Biden in March signed into law a bill requiring the release of intelligence materials on potential links between the outbreak of the Covid pandemic and a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but it would appear the report was censored. Picture: AFP

The US congress is set to probe revelations that officials at the highest levels of the intelligence community censored the input of scientists who concluded that Covid-19 was genetically engineered in a laboratory.

A homeland security committee senator has also called for the allegations to be “investigated immediately”.

The Australian and Sky News revealed on Friday that senior scientists working for the Defence Intelligence Organisation’s National Centre for Medical Intelligence – Robert Greg Cutlip, Jean-Paul Chretien and John Hardham – had 90 per cent of their input into a probe ordered by US President Joe Biden deleted.

Jean-Paul Chretien.

John Hardham.

They were stunned when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s study into the origins of Covid-19 was released and downplayed the likelihood that SARS-CoV-2 was the result of laboratory research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

US officials have expressed serious concerns at censorship of the scientists, saying the matter raised questions over the accuracy of the 90-day probe handed down by Mr Biden in August 2021.

The congressional select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic will now evaluate the allegations, with a spokesperson saying there were concerns about the accuracy of the intelligence agency’s public assessments.

Robert Greg Cutlip.

“The select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic takes the reported allegations seriously,” a spokesperson said. “We are explicitly tasked with investigating the origins of Covid-19 and the purported information raises questions concerning the accuracy of the ODNI report and its conclusions.”

Separately, US senator Roger Marshall, who sits on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and is leading the Covid origins investigations, said he was exploring his options about how to take censorship of the scientists further and that the cover-up “must be fully investigated immediately”.

“We never trusted the Chinese Communist Party to come clean about the origins of Covid-19, but a potential cover-up by our own government and Defence agencies tasked with securing our ­nation should concern every American and must be fully investigated immediately,” he told The Weekend Australian.

“The intelligence community’s official inconclusive position about the origins of Covid-19 has never accurately reflected the classified intelligence we reviewed. Now we are learning insider censorship of US expert scientists may have influenced the report.”

Quantitative biologist Justin Kinney, associate professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said the revelations were “very important”.

“The ODNI appeared to have intentionally suppressed critical scientific information to mislead the public about the origins of Covid-19,” he said. “The house subcommittee on the pandemic should investigate.”

It comes after The Australian and Sky News revealed a draft document was shared with agencies in the intelligence community for input when Mr Biden ordered the probe in May 2021.

Sources familiar with the work inside the ­intelligence agency and the scientists’ interactions with the ODNI said 90 per cent of their input was censored or deleted.

“They said the information was too technical to include in the ODNI assessment,” one said.

“When the scientists saw the final document, they wondered where did all their edits go?”