David Asher, the former lead investigator into the state department’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, believes the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was the result of an accident by the Chinese military, which was researching a bioweapon at the time.
U.S. intelligence agencies have let it be known that they have a pretty good handle on the coronavirus’s origin and they believe the lab-accident theory is viable, although “unlikely.” Despite the WHO ordering its researchers not to investigate that angle any further, it seems pretty clear that the U.S. is treading very carefully so as not to upset China too much.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology is not the National Institute of Health,” David Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “It was operating a secret, classified program. In my view, and I’m just one person, my view is it was a biological weapons program.”
Biological weapons have been outlawed since the 1970s. Even research on bioweapons is severely restricted. If China was conducting illegal research, it stands to reason they’d want to hide it.
Asher has long been a “follow the money” guy who has worked on some of the most classified intelligence investigations for the State Department and Treasury under both Democratic and Republican administrations. He led the team that uncovered the international nuclear procurement network run by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, AQ Khan, and uncovered key parts of North Korea’s secret uranium enrichment. He believes the Chinese Communist Party has been involved in a massive cover-up during the past 14 months.
“And if you believe, as I do, that this might have been a weapons vector gone awry, not deliberately released, but in development and then somehow leaked, this has turned out to be the greatest weapon in history,” Asher said during a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute: The Origins of the COVID-10: Policy Implications and Lessons for the Future. “You’ve taken out 15 to 20 percent of global GDP. You’ve killed millions of people. The Chinese population has been barely affected. Their economies roared back to being number one in the entire G20.”
What makes the lab-accident theory unlikely is the DNA profile of the virus not pointing to any man-made interventions. It appears to have arisen completely in nature.
Any “smoking gun” evidence was destroyed by the Chinese months ago, so we’re not likely to get a definitive answer.
At first, China said the COVID19 virus originated in the Wuhan Seafood Market – but the problem with China’s theory: the first case had no connection to the market. Last fall the US obtained intelligence that indicates there was an outbreak among several Wuhan lab scientists with flu-like symptoms that left them hospitalized in November of 2019 – before China reported its first case. Asher and the other Hudson Institute panel experts said that in 2007, China announced it would begin work on genetic bioweapons using controversial “gain of function” research to make the viruses more lethal.
What makes Asher’s observations so compelling is his disregard for the politics of the situation. Joe Biden will never finger China as a culprit in the virus outbreak. And suddenly announcing that the pandemic was caused by a leak from a lab would lead to serious repercussions from China.
Better to let the truth remain hidden, they are saying. That won’t change the fact that the truth will eventually come out and we’ll finally know what China was trying to hide.
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