Top Intel Republican turns up heat on Biden to declassify COVID origins findings

After the House and Senate voted unanimously to make the information related to the origins of Covid-19 public, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said the Biden administration has no excuse not to grant a full disclosure. to stand.

“No harm will be done to intelligence community sources or means and methods of releasing this Covid-19 material,” Turner stressed in an interview with DailyMail.com.

“Congress passed this with strong bipartisan support, giving the president the support to take action to release this information.”

The release bill came after the Energy Department revealed with low confidence that Covid-19 most likely leaked from a lab and the FBI concluded the same with moderate confidence.

President Biden has not indicated he would veto the bill, so it is expected to become law, requiring the director of national intelligence to release Covid-19 findings within 90 days and a non- classified report back to Congress.

The bill specifically asks for details about the coronavirus and gains of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and information about the researchers who fell ill in the fall of 2019, before the virus was known to the world.

It instructs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to only redact information as necessary to protect sources and methods.

That could be interpreted loosely, though Turner says that based on what he’s seen in secret environments, he doesn’t believe it should be. “It is possible for the administration to redact some information, but no information should be redacted.”

“Editing the information about how you got it is different from editing the information. There is nothing in this information that reveals the source,” Turner added.

‘The conclusions and the information available to the intelligence services must be public.’

“There is no need to protect China,” he added.

Republicans have claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, worked to fund the Wuhan lab and function gains research and therefore had an incentive to educate the public about natural origins.

“It is clear that Fauci’s statements have been proven false,” Turner said. “Last week he made statements that even if it was a lab leak, it was still of natural origin, which is completely unsupported by the information the Intelligence Committee reviewed and had in its possession.”

On Saturday, Fauci suggested on CNN that if the virus were found in nature, then studied in the lab and left the lab, it would still be considered “natural in origin.”

“A lab leak could be someone was out in the wild, maybe looking for different kinds of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab and was studied in a lab, and then left the lab. But if that’s the definition of a lab leak, then that’s still a natural occurrence,” Fauci said.

“I can’t understand why he keeps making these statements,” Turner said.

“That’s why it’s important that this information is made public so that we don’t have conflicting statements from people who have seen the intelligence. The American people are smart—they should be able to read the intelligence for themselves.”

Ex-CDC director Robert Redfield said at a hearing on the origins of Covid last week: “I don’t think there will be any answers from the scientific community. I think it will come from the intelligence services.’

Redfield said there was evidence of the virus as early as September 2019, pointing to three now-released “highly irregular” findings pointing to the lab leak theory – he said researchers removed early Covid-19 sequences, command and control of the Wuhan Institute switched virology from civilian to military and allowed a contractor to redo the ventilation in the lab, which Redfield called “really telling.”

Turner urges Americans not to use TikTok because they are ‘giving their data and information to China’

In the extensive interview, Turner also spoke out about Chinese surveillance on TikTok.

“People shouldn’t be using TikTok — they’re handing over their data and information to China, which is all part of the surveillance society they’ve also subjected their population to. It’s part of their authoritarian control over their citizens.’

Multiple bipartisan bills are floating around the House and Senate that would ban or expand President Biden’s authority to ban the Chinese video platform.

We still don’t know enough about classified documents, Turner claims

Turner also spoke out about the classified briefing received by the so-called Gang of Eight, top members of the intelligence committees and leaders of the House and Senate, about classified documents found in the personal homes of President Trump, Biden and Vice President Mike Pence.

“They didn’t give us any information about the specific documents that were retrieved,” he said of the briefing.

“With the permission we have … we should have absolute access to review them and determine for ourselves what happened and the risk, if any.”

After the Gang of Eight briefing, Turner was informed by the National Archives that as many as 84 members of Congress and other senior officials have lost sensitive material since 2009.

Classified documents were found mixed with document collections donated to libraries, universities and museums.

Turner said he’s been told every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan has had problems with improper handling of classified documents.

“This is a problem and we clearly need to solve it.”

“I’m also concerned that all these documents are being wrapped up and sent to the archivist when they should probably go back to the desks they came from,” Turner added.

The Presidential Records Act requires outgoing presidents to turn over their official records, including classified documents, to the National Archives. “If a classified document comes to the CIA, maybe when they’re done it should go back to the CIA.”

FBI conducts a ‘culture of abuse of an invasion of individuals’ privacy’

Last week, GOP Representative Darin Lahood, R-Ill., said at an Intel hearing that he believes he was the member wrongfully searched by the FBI, according to a 2021 ODNI report.

The report said the FBI had falsely searched the records of an unnamed member of Congress and local political organizations under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to see if they had ties to foreign intelligence services.

Justice Department officials said the search amounted to a “misunderstanding” of the law by intelligence analysts and FBI Director Chris Wray said his agency has since made “extensive” changes to its surveillance activities.

Turner said he was “absolutely not” satisfied with the FBI’s changes.

“The FBI has granted access to FISA data, including questions about the American people, including members of Congress, which are clearly prohibited,” he said.

‘This is not a misunderstanding. This is a culture of abusing an invasion of individuals’ privacy.”

The Intel committee has now set up a “working group” to discuss reforms of Section 702, which is intended to provide targeted surveillance of non-Americans.

Section 702 expires at the end of December unless Congress votes to extend it. The Biden administration has called for a clean supply renewal, but will fight an uphill battle against lawmakers who want to curb it.