Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., panned the liberal press on Saturday after the newly released CIA assessment that the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China.
“I’ve said from the beginning that Covid likely originated in the Wuhan labs. Communist China covered it up and the liberal media covered for them,” Cotton said in a statement. “I’m pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation of Covid’s origins and I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to release this conclusion. Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world.”
The CIA’s assessment, which was made with “low confidence” and part of a review conducted during the Biden administration, was released by new director John Ratcliffe. The CIA noted that it has no certainty about its conclusion and the so-called “natural origin” theory remains a possibility.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
CIA RELEASES NEW ANALYSIS ON COVID ORIGINS FAVORING LAB LEAK THEORY
Cotton, who is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stood out early in 2020 for proclaiming the likelihood of the pandemic’s connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was known for its experiments on bat coronaviruses and in the same city as the outbreak of the devastating disease that killed millions around the world.
Cotton at one point suggested COVID could have been a purposeful Chinese bio-weapon, but the more widely accepted theory for proponents in the years since was that it was an accident that the Chinese Communist Party covered up.
Cotton’s connection of the lab to the disease was initially met with derision from many corners of the liberal press, with outlets calling it “fringe,” “a conspiracy theory,” and “debunked.” The Washington Post issued a correction to a 2020 story that used the “debunked” language, admitting there was no conclusive determination about the origins of the virus.
Other outlets and fact-checkers also later backtracked on initial condemnations and dismissals of the lab theory, with some journalists even admitting that Republican support for it played into their opposition.
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“I just used common sense,” Cotton said in 2021. “The Chinese Communist Party pointed to an open-air food market as the origin of this virus but they didn’t even sell bats in that market… This virus didn’t emerge in some remote rural village or mountain next to a cave full of bats. It emerged in a city larger than New York, just down the road from labs where we know they were conducting very dangerous research into coronaviruses.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed last week, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of COVID’s origins as part of a broader strategy “addressing the threat from China.”
He also said he wants the CIA to “get off the sidelines” and take a stand.
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In a March 2023 Fox News piece co-written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep a growing consensus around the lab leak theory quiet by suppressing “what can clearly be assessed from the intelligence they possess.”
He also cast doubt on the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about the virus’ origins.
In 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau believed the lab theory was the most plausible, and the Department of Energy during the Biden administration also expressed “low confidence” in the idea.
Fox News’ Rachel Wolf and Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.
