The intelligence agency says it has “low confidence” in the assessment and will continue to evaluate credible information.
The CIA has announced that it believes the COVID-19 pandemic “more likely” came from a laboratory leak than a natural event.
The CIA’s ‘low trust’ assessment comes after John Ratcliffe was sworn in on Thursday as director of US President Donald Trump’s top intelligence agency.
The “CIA continues to assess that the research-related and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 pandemic remain plausible,” a spokesperson said on Saturday.
“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any credible intelligence reporting or open source information available that may change the CIA’s assessment.”
US media reported that the assessment was ordered during the administration of former US President Joe Biden and was completed before Ratcliffe took office.
After the CIA’s announcement, three US agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy, have now publicly supported the theory that Covid-19 most likely escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
China’s embassy in Washington, D.C., rejected the CIA’s assessment, which said it “concocts misleading conclusions, throws dirty water on China and engages in framing.”
“This is still an old routine of political manipulation of source tracing and has no credibility. The source of the virus is a complex scientific question, and scientists and experts should find the answer through rigorous and meticulous scientific research, rather than being judged by politicians,” the embassy spokesperson said, Liu Pengyu.
“We strongly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories.”
Liu added that China “has always adhered to the spirit of science, openness and transparency” and pointed to a joint study by the World Health Organization that concluded that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.”
Four other US intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have said they believe the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission.
In an interview with Breitbart News on Friday, Ratcliffe had said the origins of Covid would be a priority “someday.”
“I have been recorded as you know saying that I think our intelligence and our science and our common sense really dictates that the origins of Covid was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the CIA has not made that assessment or at least has not made that assessment publicly,” Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, told The Outled.
“So I’m going to focus on that and look at the intelligence and make sure the public is aware that the agency is going to come out on the sidelines.”
