New NIH Emails Released: What Are Officials Trying to Hide About Covid’s Origins?

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A top National Institutes of Health official told Covid scientists he uses his personal email to evade strictures of the Freedom of Information Act, according to records obtained by congressional investigators probing the origins of Covid-19. This week on Deconstructed, journalist Jimmy Tobias joins Ryan Grim to discuss the U.S. government's response to the question of Covid's origins, attempts by NIH officials to skirt transparency, and the ongoing battle to access intelligence investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Deconstructed, I'm Ryan Grim.
0:05.8	And today we're going to take another look at the ongoing controversy around the origin
0:09.4	of COVID, focusing on two major new developments.
0:12.4	Now, if you feel lost in all the claims and the counterclaims flying around in what is
0:16.5	becoming highly politicized and tribal debate, I'd recommend scrolling back in the feed
0:21.2	to our May 6th, 2022 episode on the Lab League, which I genuinely think is the best podcast
0:26.8	summary of that you're going to find.
0:28.4	It's an interview with three journalists who've been tracking the issue closely.
0:31.6	Today, we're going to be talking to a fourth, Jimmy Tobias, who has a new piece in the
0:35.6	intercept that adds valuable context to what we know about how the US government responded
0:40.0	to the question of COVID's origin.
0:42.0	Jimmy, welcome to Deconstructed.
0:44.0	Thanks for having me.
0:45.7	And so of the two developments I referred to, one is his major new piece, which you can find
0:49.4	over at the intercept, and it's not that long, and I encourage people to read it if they
0:52.8	can.
0:53.8	The other is the release by the administration of a four-page, declassified set of assessments
0:59.2	related mostly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
1:02.6	That declassification was a belated effort by the administration to comply with the law
1:06.5	passed by Congress mandating the disclosure.
1:09.8	It was a quite short and clear law, so rather than describe it, I'll just read you the relevant
1:14.5	part, quote, not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the
	...

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