CIA Director Says New COVID-19 Assessment Restores Trust in US Intel Agencies

A CIA assessment said COVID-19 ‘more likely’ came from a Chinese lab.

Newly confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe and his wife, Michele Ratcliffe, listen as Vice President JD Vance speaks during a swearing-in ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House on Jan. 23, 2025. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

CIA Director John Ratcliffe has said the recent decision to release a COVID-19 assessment was aimed at fostering transparency with the American people.

Ratcliffe, who was sworn in on Jan. 23 after Senate confirmation, told Fox News in a Jan. 26 interview that the assessment was completed under President Joe Biden’s administration. The CIA said in the assessment that a lab origin is “more likely” for the COVID-19 pandemic and that the agency came to such a conclusion with “low confidence.”

“I had the opportunity on my first day to make public an assessment that actually took place in the Biden administration, so it can’t be accused of being political,” Ratcliffe said.

“The CIA has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan, so we'll continue to investigate that moving forward.

“I think it was important for the American people to see an institution like the CIA get off the sidelines and be truthful about what our intelligence shows and, at the same time, protect us from adversaries like China if they caused or contributed to this.”

The CIA has now joined the FBI and the Energy Department in assessing that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.

A State Department fact sheet released in 2021 stated that China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been conducting experiments on bat coronavirus starting in at least 2016. The institute has also carried out “laboratory animal experiments” for the Chinese military since at least 2017, it stated.

“Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military,” the fact sheet stated.

The fact sheet also stated that several researchers had contracted COVID-19-like symptoms in fall 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Leaked documents from China that The Epoch Times obtained also show that at least one patient started experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms in September 2019, months before China reported its first case.

Ratcliffe told Fox News that releasing the assessment was an effort by President Donald Trump to “restore Americans’ trust” in the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement.

“The purpose of the CIA is to protect Americans, to keep us safe from foreign threats and foreign adversaries, but we also need to be truthful with Americans, and [Trump] has stressed to me and others that these aren’t mutually exclusive missions. We can do both,” Ratcliffe said.

The CIA’s decision drew applause from several lawmakers.

“I’ve been saying since January of 2020 that COVID came from a lab. I’m glad the CIA is catching up!” Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) wrote on social media platform X on Jan. 25.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) wrote on X on Jan. 25 that he was “glad to see the CIA under Director Ratcliffe’s leadership declassifying info on the origins of COVID & finally stating it most likely came from a lab in Wuhan.”

“The CCP knew the virus was spreading, but instead of warning the world, they perpetrated a massive coverup—burning lab evidence & detaining or killing doctors who spoke out,” he wrote.

“Americans deserve the full truth about this catastrophe, & President Trump’s CIA is finally going to help them get it.”