That started a discussion, the officials said, about declassifying some of the findings and having intelligence officials issue a public statement. The statement — which described the lack of consensus among intelligence agencies — was ready this week, but Mr. Biden felt it would not help clarify the issue for the public, according to the senior official. on further inquiries, which prompted Mr. Biden to press for a more robust United States investigation, the official said. “For over a year, anyone asking questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been branded as a conspiracy theorist,” Mr. Hawley said. “The world needs to know if this pandemic was the product of negligence at the Wuhan lab, but the C.C.P.

Source: New York Times May 27, 2021 00:38 UTC