Australian intelligence agencies are pushing back on U.S. officials’ claims that the coronavirus began in a Wuhan laboratory, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Members of the country’s intelligence community told the newspaper that a document circulated “in political circles under the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement”—believed to be the same 15-page “dossier” that accused China of a virus cover-up—was not based on intelligence gathering and mostly taken from media reports.
Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed—without offering proof—that’s there’s “enormous evidence” the outbreak began in a Chinese lab. “I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,” he said. Intelligence sources told the Herald that no one has offered Australia evidence that the coronavirus began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
