The White House’s persistent claim that Covid-19 is a Chinese lab creation is nothing but a calculated move meant to divert Americans’ anger away from how Trump handles the crisis, German spies reportedly believe.
Like their counterparts over the Atlantic, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, has also tried to connect the dots after the Trump administration linked the novel coronavirus to a laboratory in Wuhan.
According to Spiegel magazine, the spy agency reached out to partner services making up the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, asking them to provide any evidence backing up the lab theory. None of the secret services from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand was willing to substantiate it to the BND, the magazine revealed.
The notable response – or maybe the absence thereof – led the BND to pen a confidential letter to Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, which was seen by Spiegel. It called the theory a calculated diversion undertaken by the White House.
US President Donald Trump, the BND says, is trying to employ the allegations in order to “distract [attention]from his own mistakes and direct the Americans’ anger towards China.”
Trump has previously exclaimed that he has seen evidence backing up this theory. “We have people looking at it very, very strongly. Scientific people, intelligence people, and others,” he said, adding: “We will have a very good answer eventually.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was more straightforward, claiming there is a “significant amount of evidence” that the novel coronavirus originated from a Wuhan lab.
Members of the US intelligence community, meanwhile, preferred to be extremely cautious on the matter. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees US spy agencies, made a rare media intervention, saying it sticks to the “wide scientific consensus” that Covid-19 has natural origins.
Politicians on the other side of the Atlantic were apparently of the same opinion. “We have looked into this and we don’t have any evidence that this is a man-made coronavirus,” UK Health Minister Matt Hancock stated this week. “There’s nothing I’ve seen that confirms the allegation,” he reiterated.
Likewise, Australian PM Scott Morrison decline to stick with the lab theory, not seeing “anything that suggests that conclusively.” Covid-19 has “most likely” come from “wildlife wet market,” he said.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
