The determination was made in an intelligence report from the Department of Energy and comes three years after evidence of the “lab leak theory” was first presented publicly. Previously undecided on how the virus emerged, the Energy Department says it has updated its assessment upon the discovery of new intelligence, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The Energy Department now joins the FBI, which concluded in 2021 that the COVID-19 pandemic began because of a lab leak. A study by California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluded in May 2020, just months after the outbreak began, that the virus most likely leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan. “The assessment is said to have been among the first U.S. government efforts to seriously explore the hypothesis that the virus leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology along with the dominant hypothesis that the virus spread naturally from animals to humans,” WSJ reported, at the time. On May 26, 2020, President Joe Biden commissioned a fresh intelligence investigation, though he made no mention of the Livermore report. Biden said the new inquiry would involve U.S. spy agencies and national laboratories, and be overseen by the Energy Department, according to WSJ. Early on in the pandemic, non-governmental organizations had also conducted investigations leading to the conclusion that the pandemic originated in a lab. In April 2020, Joshua Philipp, investigative reporter with The Epoch Times, released a documentary with scientific data and interviews from scientists and national security experts presenting the plausibility of the lab leak theory, barely a month after numerous states introduced the first lockdown measures. “It's nice to see the Department of Energy make this assessment. I know the FBI is also made pretty much the same assessment that Covid-19, the evidence does suggest, leaked out of a laboratory,” Philipp told Timcast in an interview. Philipp believes that the government's latest acknowledgment should prompt individuals and journalists to investigate issues like this — even if the information runs contrary to what the authorities are saying. “Over and over again for this whole pandemic, we've seen the people at the front lines exposing things have repeatedly been shown to be true,” he added. “And the authorities that are pushing, you know, their own narratives and censoring people have repeatedly shown to have been wrong.” Despite evidence supporting a lab leak emerging within the first 90-days of the pandemic, the issue quickly became politicized with social media sites resorting to banning posts or users who put forth the idea on their platforms. Under the guise of “misinformation,” Facebook banned posts advancing the lab leak narrative, which, after consultation with the World Health Organization (WHO), categorized the idea among a “list of false claims we will remove,” the company said in a statement at the time. Philipp is one of numerous people who suffered adverse reactions on their social media platforms for reporting on the lab leak theory. Facebook, he says, not only censored his documentary, but went so far as to falsely label the political film as “sexually explicit” in order to justify the platform hiding it from viewers. “And then you deal with guys like myself, who not only were censored, but the growth of my channel was even suppressed. And I've been censored on a whole bunch of platforms by now,” Philipp explained. “They're not rolling back the censorship, even though my reporting has now been vindicated. I am still heavily censored online, my show is still demonetized on YouTube, my documentary is still censored on Facebook. And I would like to see an apology. I would like to see them roll back their censorship.” Twitter, prior to its purchase by billionaire Elon Musk, banned posts and users citing “misinformation” for posted content that suggested the lab leak theory was the source of the pandemic. "We continue to take enforcement action on content and accounts that advance demonstrably false or misleading claims about COVID-19 and that may lead to significant risk of harm," the Twitter spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Newsweek in June 2021. "We do this work in close consultation with global public health authorities, and we'll continue to collaborate with public health experts to help people find authoritative, reliable information about COVID-19, particularly as the pandemic evolves around the world." Following Facebook’s policy change, Twitter would not confirm if the company’s censorship effort would continue. Republicans, who have largely been vocal about the possibility of the lab leak theory, responded to news of the Energy Department’s classified report by saying that it simply supports long-held beliefs. “So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” Rep. Jim Jordan posted to his Twitter account. “Two years ago, Big Tech censored us from saying Covid originated in a Chinese lab. Now we know that’s exactly how it happened,” Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur, author, and 2024 presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter. “The only question left is whether it was intentional. I will use every financial lever to *make them pay* for it, without apology.” U.S. officials have “declined to give details” on the new intelligence and analysis that led the Energy Department to update its position, WSJ reported.U.S. government officials now conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated through a leak from a laboratory, according to a classified report sent to the White House and key congressional members.
