After ruthlessly denying the idea over the last year, Biden called for a 90-day investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
This comes after intelligence officials briefed the White House that they had troves of unexamined evidence that required computer analysis, and the future findings may shed light on the mystery.
Though officials refused to describe the new evidence, they are hoping to uncover whether the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese laboratory, indicating that the government may not have exhausted its databases of Chinese communications, the movement of lab workers and the pattern of the outbreak around the city of Wuhan, the New York Times reports.
Biden’s push is intended to encourage American allies and intelligence agencies to delve into existing information - intercepts, witnesses or biological evidence - as well as search for new intelligence to determine the root cause.
Biden promised Thursday to make the results public “unless there’s something [he’s] unaware of.”
To no surprise, Biden faced backlash from critics who argued that for the last year, he dismissed the possibility that a Chinese laboratory was the origin until the Chinese government this week rejected allowing further investigation by the World Health Organization.
Too little too late, perhaps.
Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long perpetuated the idea that the virus could have come from the Wuhan lab, said Biden’s order was “better late than never, but far from adequate.”
From the beginning, President Trump, using the information available to him as president, came to a reasonable conclusion regarding the origin of the virus. Whether because of Trump derangement syndrome, the fact that he is a republican, or that it didn't fit their current talking points, or a combination of those factors, the democrats and mainstream media saw fit to condemn that position as 'racist'. Now that he is out of office, Biden deems it the perfect time to start questioning the origins of the virus like he should have all along.
