Pentagon was told SIX times that Covid was lab leak at start of pandemic – but buried the truth, ex-intel official says
US military chiefs were repeatedly told that Covid was a lab leak at the start of the pandemic, a former Pentagon official has revealed.
Jon Myers, who was a Marine Corps officer for 28 years and joined the Pentagon in 2018, claims he first told Joint Chiefs of Staff about a lab leak in China in October 2019.
Mr Myers said he "knows with absolute certainty" that top US military chiefs were told Covid had leaked from a lab in Wuhan.
The FBI and the US Department of Energy believe Covid most likely leaked from a lab in China.
And a new congressional report came to the same conclusion earlier this month.
But Mr Myers claims the Joint Chiefs of Staff were briefed in October 2019 - more than five years ago - about a new virus that had leaked from a lab in China.
Read more on Wuhan
He told The Sun: "This was briefed in October and November 2019 as a lab leak. It's important that people realise.
"It was in the intelligence. We briefed it. It was accepted. I briefed it numerous times about a viral outbreak and that it was from a lab.
"Over the course of late November and December, it probably came up six or seven times in briefings.
"Nobody said, 'hey I heard that was not true, it was not from a lab'. It was just stated as fact."
Most read in The Sun
Then, in April 2020, the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said the "weight of evidence" pointed to "natural" origins.
By that point, Mr Myers was retiring after nearly three decades in service - and he said intelligence officers were no longer providing briefings that mentioned a lab leak.
Mr Myers' believes the truth was suppressed as "it was not politically favourable at the time" - and for "self-preservation".
He said: "It was very interesting to me how I was the one briefing all these officers on the fact it was a lab leak - and then after I left, that whole aspect of it had disappeared.
"Nobody came out and said, 'hey, we have intelligence that it came from a lab'. It just disappeared.
"It became a political issue. That's why it was quashed.
"If you mentioned that it came from a lab, you were some sort of conspiracy theorist. I found it very odd and intriguing that the early intelligence just vanished.
"It seems to fall out of the realm of the Department of Defence and became more health and human services.
"We were no longer talking about the military intelligence aspect of it."
I was the one briefing all these officers on the fact it was a lab leak - and then after I left, that whole aspect of it had disappeared
Jon Myers
As director of regional intelligence at the Pentagon, Mr Myers' sifted "all the most classified intelligence produced by every American government intelligence agency".
It was in October 2019 that Mr Myers gave his first brief on a "viral outbreak in China" that had been "released from a lab".
He said: "We briefed that to the joint staff - all the generals. I know this to be a fact.
"When we briefed that in October, November and December 2019, there was no protest.
"It was a fact and the joint staff, the generals... they accepted it. It was briefed as fact because it was in the intelligence.
"Intelligence is processed data. When it's presented to us at that level, it's as good as fact. This is intelligence vetted through various sources - and we don't brief unless it's certified.
"Nobody said, 'hey I heard that was not true, it was not from a lab'. It was just stated as fact. It was in the intelligence. We briefed it. It was accepted."
Because it came out of a very powerful Communist dictatorship, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence - which is a scandal
Bob Seely
More than five years after the lab leak intelligence was first briefed, Mr Myers doubts anyone will come forward with the "truth" about what happened.
He said: "Once you're in a lie, you're caught in a lie."
The former intelligence officer believes it will take decades for the world to uncover the truth about the origins of the pandemic.
He said: "Until certain people who were involved in trying to manipulate the way we viewed the outbreak are no longer with us, then maybe we'll find out some facts.
"But I think if there were people involved in trying to frame how we viewed the outbreak - for whatever reason - they're never going to admit that they did that."
Former MP Bob Seely described the apparent lack of attention to the intelligence as a "scandal".
Until certain people who were involved in trying to manipulate the way we viewed the outbreak are no longer with us, then maybe we'll find out some facts
Jon Myers
He told The Sun: "Because it came out of a very powerful Communist dictatorship, there seems to be a conspiracy of silence - which is a scandal.
"This just shows that when you have a conspiracy of silence, you have a horrible set of circumstances, which effectively led to China getting off scot-free.
"You have a global scandal, where you have the soft corruption of institutions, the soft corruption of science, and unwillingness of people to hold China to account for this.
"I think it's got to do with people being scared to offend China. There seems to be political reactions to go slow on China."
The Sun has contacted Joint Chiefs of Staff for comment.
Earlier this month, the US Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report.
What happened in Wuhan?
THE Wuhan Institute of Virology has been at the centre of the lab leak theory ever since Covid first emerged just a stone's throw from the facility - which was known to be studying very similar bat viruses.
Declassified intelligence documents confirmed Wuhan scientists first fell sick in late 2019 with Covid-like symptoms - raising questions over whether they were accidentally infected in the lab.
Scientist Shi Zhengli - dubbed 'Batwoman' - had been experimenting with bat coronaviruses for years at the Wuhan lab.
The lab began hunting the origin of SARS viruses in 2003, attracted US-government funding and was shown cutting-edge virus manipulation techniques.
They were running secret dangerous secret experiments combining the most deadly coronaviruses - which it initially made public and justified by claiming it could help develop vaccines.
But many scientists and intelligence officials suspect researchers at the lab accidentally spread Covid during risky so-called "gain of function" experiments on coronaviruses.
Both China and the lab have furiously denied any allegations - but evidence of a lab leak has been piling up as scientists, researchers and governments hunt for answers and step forward with evidence.
Investigators combing for clues have uncovered documents pointing to alleged cover-ups, plans to make viruses with the exact same features as Covid, and apparent links to the Chinese military.
Other reports have named Covid 'Patient Zero' as a Wuhan scientist and even China's own government scientist said a lab leak should not be ruled out.
The Sun also interviewed a Wuhan lab leak whistleblower who claimed he was trailed by the FBI to silence him.
And a bombshell study uncovered a string of biosafety hazards at "crowded and chaotic" labs in Wuhan - including filthy animal cages and crumbling sewers.
The FBI and the US Department of Energy now believe Covid most likely leaked from a lab in China.
Former intelligence chiefs and diplomats have claimed Covid was leaked from a Wuhan lab in the "cover-up of the century".
And the World Health Organisation reportedly believes Covid did leak from the lab after a "catastrophic accident".
Despite many theories emerging, scientists and researchers have not yet been able to determine the origins of the pandemic - with a lab leak and a natural source both being probed.
China has long been accused of attempting to cover up or distort its role in the story of Covid - something it denies.
Following a two-year investigation involving dozens of interviews and high-profile hearings, the bombshell report said: "The weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis.
"By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced."
The report noted that Wuhan Institute of Virology was China's top coronavirus research lab and it had "a history of conducting research at inadequate biosafety levels".
It added that researchers at the lab "were sick with a Covid-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before Covid-19 was discovered at the wet market".
The report accused the Chinese government, agencies in the US government and even members of the scientific community of a "cover up".
It also implicates a US organisation that worked with the Wuhan lab using taxpayer cash.
The Department of Justice launched a grand jury investigation - a probe into potential criminal conduct - into EcoHealth Alliance, the report reveals.
EcoHealth Alliance has been under fire since the early days of the pandemic over its bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab.
The group has faced scrutiny over whether Covid may have emerged from the research at the lab that was funded by the US government.
Experts claim the Wuhan lab and EcoHealth Alliance endangered the world by carrying out so-called "gain of function" experiments to engineer chimeric viruses.
This "souping up" involves extracting viruses from animals to engineer in a lab to make them more transmissible and deadly to humans.
And the report found that the US government funded this type of research at the lab.
The details of the federal investigation remain secret - but it raises questions about whether some in the scientific community could face criminal charges over the pandemic.
But Congressman Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the subcommittee, said Dr Daszak "should never again receive US taxpayer dollars".
Investigators blasted the US government for incorrectly calling the lab leak theory a "conspiracy" - and peddling "misinformation".
Dozens of scientists and politicians believe Covid likely escaped from the Wuhan lab.
In September, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he believes the pandemic was caused by a lab leak - and did not originate in a Wuhan wet market.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
The natural origins theory contends that Covid jumped from bats into humans through an "intermediate host".
But an animal host has not been found after nearly five years of searching.
Congress report confirms what we suspected
By Imogen Braddick, Assistant Foreign Editor
Finally, politicians have said what many scientists and journalists have been saying for years - that Covid did leak from a dodgy lab in Wuhan.
But how has it taken five years to say what many people suspected within weeks of China admitting there was a new virus on the loose?
In a bombshell move, Congress accused governments and members of the scientific community of trying to cover-up facts about the origins of the pandemic.
And the report is an acknowledgement that the lab leak theory is not a conspiracy - after years of shaming anyone who dare question the "consensus".
It's a step in the right direction in the fight for justice for the millions of people who lost loved ones in the pandemic.
Many will continue to question why finding the origins of the pandemic is important.
It's important for the families of millions who died. It's also important if we want to stop the next pandemic.
If Covid did leak from a lab, we must have more oversight over risky lab research. If it was a natural spillover event, we must take steps to try and prevent a similar disaster.
The Congress report is a welcome victory - but it's taken far too long for a government to take the lead on the probe into the origins.
Here, the UK government is rightly examining the response to the pandemic with the Covid-19 Inquiry.
But it should also pay more attention to where the virus came from if we want to stop another pandemic killing millions more.
There's still much more evidence to be found, clues to be uncovered and scientists to quiz/