US media revealed Friday that senior officials in the administration of President Donald Trump pressed American spy agencies to search for evidence that supports an unfounded theory that a government laboratory in Wuhan, China The source of the outbreak of the Corona virus was emerging (Covid 19), according to current and former US officials.
The efforts come as President Trump is stepping up a public campaign to blame China for the spread of the pandemic.
Some intelligence analysts fear that pressure from administration officials may distort assessments about the virus, and that it could be used as a political weapon in a fierce battle with China because of an illness that has infected more than three million people around the world. Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical about the possibility of finding conclusive evidence of a link to the laboratory, where scientists who have studied the genetic makeup of the Corona virus say the most likely possibility is that it has passed from animal to human in an in vitro environment, as was the case with HIV. Ebola and SARS.
Trump aides and Republicans in Congress are seeking to partially blame China for this pandemic, to avoid criticism of the administration´s mishandling of the crisis in the United States, which has more casualties than any other country, where more than a million Americans have been injured, and more than a million have died. About 64 thousand people of them.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the most senior hardline administration official on China, is leading the effort to pressure US intelligence agencies to obtain more information, according to current and former officials.
It is noteworthy that Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security advisor who covered the SARS outbreak as a journalist in China, pressed intelligence agencies last January to collect information that might support any theory linking the origin of the virus to the laboratory. Anthony Ruggiero, head of the Office of the National Security Council to track weapons of mass destruction, also expressed his frustration during a video conference early this year that the CIA was unable to support any theory of the origin of the virus.
Agency analysts simply responded that they had no evidence to support any single theory with great confidence at the time, according to people familiar with the conversation.
They warn that any US intelligence report blaming a Chinese institution or Chinese officials for the outbreak could seriously harm relations with China for years to come. It can be used by Trump administration officials to try to urge other countries to publicly hold China accountable for corona virus deaths, even when the origins of the pandemic cannot be precisely identified.
For his part, Trump said Thursday evening, April 29, 2020, that he was interested and confident in the intelligence supportive of the theory that the virus had appeared in error from a laboratory in Wuhan.
In response to a question from a reporter, the president said that he saw intelligence that supports the idea, but he quickly retracted, adding that he was not allowed to share intelligence, and that his administration was studying various theories about the origin of the virus.
