From TPM Reader SB …
What do you think of the timing of the lab leak hypothesis coming up again very publicly when the US is putting pressure on the Chinese government to not supply lethal support to Russia? Also a couple of weeks after the balloon nonsense.
I was 50/50 on the Covid source, but Ray coming out and saying what he did moves the needle considerably for me toward the lab leak hypothesis.
On first blush this note struck me as very conspiratorial, implausible. But I changed my opinion. I still think it’s highly speculative. But it did get me thinking. Many people think this is Chris Wray kind of freelancing, with his at best injudicious comments on Fox. But the shift in this story over recent weeks is significantly driven by new information out of the U.S. government. And Joe Biden is the President. Leaks happen for all sorts of reasons. And national security-focused agencies often have minds of their own under a Democratic President. Still, Joe Biden is President.
You also have House Republicans pushing their China-is-the-adversary committee. But unlike all the other House committees under GOP management, the administration has given little indication they’re unhappy with what that committee is doing. There also seems to be a decent amount of bipartisan cooperation on that committee.
This whole line of thinking doesn’t really require any of this lab leak stuff to be true or not true. I continue to think that at the most basic level we simply don’t know. We also can’t rule out that the intelligence agencies’ views of this matter has changed recently. So I continue to see this as highly speculative. But I don’t think we can ignore the possibility that this renewed focus and pushing of the lab leak theory is connected to what seems to be the administration’s very grave concerns that China, with all its material resources, will start arming Russia in its fight with Ukraine.
