CNN | President Joe Biden's team shut down a closely-held State Department effort launched late in the Trump administration to prove the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab over concerns about the quality of its work, according to three sources familiar with the decision.
The
existence of the State Department inquiry and its termination this
spring by the Biden administration -- neither of which has been
previously reported -- comes to light amid renewed interest in whether
the virus could have leaked out
of a Wuhan lab with links to the Chinese military. The Biden
administration is also facing scrutiny of its own efforts to determine
if the Chinese government was responsible for the virus.
Those
involved in the previously undisclosed inquiry, which was launched last
fall by allies of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, say it was an
honest effort to probe what many initially dismissed: that China's
biological weapons program could have had a greater role in the
pandemic's origin in Wuhan, according to two additional sources.
But
the inquiry quickly became mired in internal discord amid concerns that
it was part of a broader politicized effort by the Trump administration
to blame China and cherry-pick facts to prove a theory.
The
decision to terminate the inquiry, which was run primarily out of the
State Department's arms control and verification bureau, was made after
Biden officials were briefed on the team's draft findings in February
and March of this year, a State Department spokesperson said. Questions
were raised about the legitimacy of the findings and the project was
deemed to be an ineffective use of resources, explained a source
familiar with the decision.
Sources
involved in the Trump-era inquiry rejected criticisms over the quality
of their work and told CNN their objective had been to examine
scientific research and information from the US intelligence community
which backed the lab leak theory and shone more light on how it could
have emerged in the lab.
A
day after CNN reported this story, the State Department disputed that
it had shut down the Trump-era inquiry and instead said that its work
had been completed. Several sources involved with the inquiry who spoke
to CNN said it was their impression that there was more work to be done.
On Wednesday, Biden issued a statement
that he has directed the US intelligence community to redouble its
efforts in investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and report
back to him in 90 days.
