Christopher Wray says FBI believes COVID-19 'most likely' originated from lab leak in Wuhan, China

Misty Severi

February 28, 09:37 PM February 28, 09:45 PM

FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed Tuesday that the FBI believes the virus responsible for COVID-19, which forced the world into quarantine, "most likely" stemmed from a lab leak in China and not from an animal.

Wray claimed that China has attempted to "obfuscate" the United States's investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. China has repeatedly pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated from a U.S. military base.

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"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray told WHD News host Bret Baier. "Here we're talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans."

Wray continued: "I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here — the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing — and that’s unfortunate for everybody."

Wray added that the FBI has teams of researchers that specifically investigate the dangers of biological weapons in the hands of U.S. enemies, including investigating viruses such as COVID-19. Wray added that the investigation into the origins has not concluded.

The comments come after the Department of Energy agreed that the lab leak likely caused the virus but claimed it was for different reasons than the FBI. Both agencies also concluded that the virus did not originate from a Chinese biological weapons program.

The National Intelligence Council and four other federal agencies have not specified that the pandemic started from a lab leak but have said they have "low confidence" that the virus was transmitted naturally from an animal. Other agencies, including the CIA, remain undecided.

The theory that the virus stemmed from a lab leak has been speculated since the start of the pandemic. The theory was partly fueled by the fact that the virus was first identified near the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, some scientists dismissed the lab leak explanation as a "conspiracy theory" in the early days of the pandemic.