The following is from Children’s Health Defense.

Newly released intelligence records obtained by watchdog group U.S. Right to Know indicate that as recently as January 2025, the US intelligence community planned to assemble an independent panel of outside experts to study the origins of Covid-19.

The records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and include a previously undisclosed National Intelligence Council memo dated Jan. 17, 2025.

According to the memo, intelligence officials planned “further engagements with outside experts to establish a new panel to conduct an independent study on the origins of COVID-19.” The documents do not indicate whether the panel was ever formed or whether the study was completed.

The article says the records suggest intelligence officials continued to view the origins of the pandemic as unresolved nearly five years after it began, despite years of investigations and the release of a 2023 intelligence assessment.

The memo also reflects the CIA’s January 2025 shift toward assessing, with low confidence, that a research-related incident was more likely than a natural spillover event. At the same time, it states both theories remained plausible and notes that several intelligence agencies continued to favor a natural-origin explanation.

Large portions of the records remain redacted despite congressional measures requiring the declassification of intelligence related to Covid-19 origins. According to the article, the identities of agencies that changed their confidence levels and the intelligence behind those changes were withheld.

The documents were released in response to U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA lawsuit seeking intelligence assessments produced after the government’s 2023 public report on the pandemic’s origins.

For more information, read the full article here.