Deadline looms for Biden to declassify COVID origin docs

WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Joe Biden has until the end of the day Sunday to declassify “any and all information” relating to the potential lab theory related to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it may not be that simple.

The legislation introduced in March gave Biden 90 days to declassify the information.

Biden’s statement on March 20 included the following language:

“In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” Biden said.

So while Biden may have agreed to release information, he — along with the intelligence community, may decide releasing the information could jeopardize U.S. security interests.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting China this weekend at a time when relations between the two countries have soured, as well as the looming deadline.

The June 18 deadline was imposed following the unanimous passage of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 in Congress earlier this year. Senators Josh Hawley and Mike Braun recently wrote to the White House asking that they comply with the law and “provide as much transparency to the American people as possible.”

The law does not impose any sanctions for not meeting the deadline, but if the White House does not release a report producing the information requested from Congress, there will likely be political consequences in the form of increased pressure from Republican lawmakers.

Former Trump administration official John Bolton suggested to NewsNation earlier this week that the report may complicate relations with China amidst Blinken’s visit.

“I think their real concern is that this report may well add to the growing body of evidence that this was a leak from the famous lab at Wuhan (The Wuhan Institute of Virology),” he said.

Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, is home to several labs involved in collecting and studying coronaviruses, fueling theories that the virus may have leaked from one.

In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had assessed “with low confidence” that the virus had leaked from a lab. But others in the U.S. intelligence community disagree, believing it more likely it first came from animals. Experts say the true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years — if ever.

The coronavirus’ genetic code is strikingly similar to that of bat coronaviruses, and many scientists suspect COVID-19 jumped into humans either directly from a bat or via an intermediary animal like pangolins, ferrets or raccoon dogs.

Efforts to determine the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic have been complicated by factors including the massive surge of human infections in the pandemic’s first two years and an increasingly bitter political dispute.

NewsNation Evyn Moon and The Associated Press contributed to this report.