House Covid committee demands CIA answer to allegations they bribed agents to dispel Wuhan 'lab leak' theory

The chairman of the House Covid Subcommittee announced on Wednesday that he is going after the CIA following a "highly credible" whistleblower's allegations that the government spy agency handed bribes to its agents so they would claim that Covid did not originate from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) told Fox News that the committee will request Andrew Makridis, the former CIA chief operating officer, to sit down for a voluntary transcribed interview and subpoena that agency for all internal documents and communications related to the Covid pandemic.

"It is alleged that this was the person [Makridis] who was a key figure in putting this together. This alleged change of mind, if you will. And so that's somebody that we want to bring in," Wenstrup said. "We're also seeking documents and all the communications that took place amongst this team and outside of this team."

The Republican congressman explained that the allegations resemble that of internal communications between Dr. Fauci and a team of scientists. They reportedly discussed that the virus's origin looked like it was engineered in a lab, but then issued a report stating that it came from nature.

"The big question is why?" Wenstrup continued. "Why was this done in the agency at CIA? And why was this done amongst these scientists led by Dr. Fauci or prompted by Dr. Fauci?"

On Tuesday, Rep. Brad Wenstrup and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who chairs the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, penned a joint letter that revealed the CIA whistleblower's explosive allegations that agents were bribed to state that Covid did not generate from a lab.

"A multi-decade, senior-level, current Agency officer has come forward to provide information to the Committees regarding the Agency's analysis into the origins of COVID-19," the letter addressed to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William J. Burns reads in part. "According to the whistleblower, the Agency assigned seven officers to a COVID Discovery Team (Team). The Team consisted of multi-disciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise."

It goes on to state that per the whistleblower, "six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis."

"The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position."

The lawmakers told the CIA it must hand over all records related to the COVID Discovery Team and any communications with the FBI, State Department, Health and Human Services and Energy Department regarding the topic by September 26, or otherwise be faced with a subpoena.