President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 into law Monday to declassify all intelligence concerning the origins of the virus.
The legislation, also known as S. 619, passed both chambers of Congress following the U.S. Department of Energy and FBI Director Christopher Wray concluding with “low” and “moderate confidence,” respectively, that COVID-19 likely originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. The lab-leak theory had long been deemed a conspiracy by the corporate media and senior health officials, leading to demands for increased transparency.
“Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the ‘COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,'” the president said in a statement. “I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics.”
INBOX: @POTUS has signed the bill declassifying Covid origins information, says he will “declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security”. pic.twitter.com/tEIF4inHuN
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) March 20, 2023
“My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” the statement concludes. (RELATED: ‘Would The President Just Let That Slide?’: Doocy Confronts John Kirby On Origins Of COVID)
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Mike Braun of Indiana reintroduced the bill Feb. 27, and the legislation passed the Senate unanimously in a March 2 vote. The House of Representatives unanimously followed suit in a March 10 vote.
The Chinese embassy reportedly objected to the legislation in a statement to Hawley’s office, accusing Congress of attempting to “politicize and stigmatize China.”
“The move by the US Congress just shows that the US is going further and further down the wrong path of political manipulation. The so-called traceability report by the US intelligence agency is an attempt to ‘presume guilt’ on China. It is an attempt to shift the blame from its own failure to fight the epidemic to China,” government official Li Xiang wrote.