Chicago City Wire

Dan Proft, co-host of Chicago's Morning Answer, pointed out that FBI Director Christopher Wray discussed what the FBI knew and when it knew regarding the coronavirus.

"More response from the intelligence community, since there's not consensus and the FBI is certainly part of the intelligence, how much ever an oxymoron that statement is," Proft said on the March 1 show. "So FBI Director Chris Wray was trotted out to sit with our friend Bret Baier to talk about sort of a big deal, a virus that killed a million Americans, and the origination of it, and whether this was something that was purposeful or accidental. Certainly the cover-up if it was accidental was not accidental. Christopher Wray, what the FBI knew and when it knew it."

Wray recently appeared on FOX News for an interview with host Bret Baier, according to Real Clear Politics.

"So, as you know, Bret, the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray said in the interview. "Let me step back for a second. The FBI has folks, agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologists, etc., who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like novel viruses, like COVID, and the concerns that, in the wrong hands, some bad guy, a hostile nation state, a terrorist, a criminal. The threats that those could pose.

"So here you're talking about a potential leak. From a Chinese government controlled lab that killed millions of Americans. And that's precisely what that capability was designed for. I should add that that our work related to this continues and there are not a whole lot of details that I can share that aren't classified.

"I will just make the observation that the Chinese government seems to me has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here. The work that we're doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing. And that's unfortunate for everybody."

CNN reported that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released an updated classified intelligence report indicating it believes the COVID-19 pandemic most likely started from a leak at a laboratory in China. Based on two sources, the DOE has low confidence that the COVID-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan. An assessment of "Low Confidence" typically means that current obtained information is not reliable enough or that there is not yet enough information to determine a stronger conclusion. 

U.S. Intelligence communities are split on whether the COVID-19 pandemic emerged naturally in China or if it was because of a leak from a Chinese lab.

"The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed,” a DOE spokesperson said.