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US lawmakers press intelligence chiefs on origins of coronavirus, threat from TikTok
- Ex-CDC chief urges push to show what data intelligence community has, ‘where they got it, who their informants were and what their conclusions were’
- On TikTok, FBI director asserts data collection through popular video app is available to Chinese officials amid support for nationwide ban
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Republican lawmakers on Wednesday stepped up pressure on the US intelligence community to declare a Chinese lab leak as Covid-19’s most likely origin, in a day of congressional hearings about national security threats posed by China.
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The coronavirus’ origins emerged as one of the most contentious issues in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that otherwise displayed relative unity between Republicans and Democrats. Other topics included the perceived dangers of TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, and the need to subject US outbound investment to national security reviews.
Citing a recently changed assessment on the matter by the US Department of Energy, Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said she was “disturbed” by the intelligence community’s placement of the lab leak and natural exposure theories as equally plausible explanations. She has said previously that a Wuhan lab leak was the “most likely cause”.
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“It is disturbing to me that … you say all agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible explanations for the origin of Covid – natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident,” Collins told Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence. “That’s one of those statements that’s technically true, but misleading.”
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Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters
Nature or lab leak? Why tracing the origin of Covid-19 matters
Collins also cited the police’s silencing of Dr Li Wenliang, one of the first people to alert the public about the coronavirus outbreak, and his subsequent death from Covid-19 as reasons not to trust the Chinese government’s explanation of events.
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