Joe Biden approved the bipartisan COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 into law Monday, which claims it will disclose government intelligence surrounding the potential origins of the virus.
Biden took his time in making the decision; he reportedly spent over a week thinking about whether or not he would sign the bill that quickly cleared congress.
The legislation was introduced to the Senate by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mike Braun (R-IN), passing unanimously earlier this month.
Upon appearing on Fox News with show host Jesse Watters to discuss his backing of the bill, Hawley remarked that it is “past time” for the American people to see what the government may know about where the virus could have originated.
The United States Senate unanimously passed a bill to declassify all U.S. intelligence on the origins of COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/dCjFJXbBRq
— Jung (@betterworld_24) March 2, 2023
The new law, titled S. 619, went through both Congressional chambers after U.S. Department of Energy and FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed with “low” and “moderate confidence” that the COVID-19 virus most probably emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
“Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the ‘COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,’” Biden said in a statement. “I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics.”
INBOX: @POTUS has signed the bill declassifying Covid origins information, says he 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”. pic.twitter.com/tEIF4inHuN
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) March 20, 2023
“My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 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,” concluded Biden’s statement.
As was noted by the New York Post, many actors in the media and government alike spent years suggesting that anybody who thinks the virus may have emerged from the Wuhan lab is a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and a ‘racist.’ Biden cheered on this bullying at the time, complaining that Big Tech platforms were not doing enough to censor views that he considers “COVID misinformation.”
One such platform was Facebook, which openly censored and removed any type of post suggesting the lab-leak theory. Following an alleged consultation with the so-called “experts,” the social media giant quietly removed the policy after enforcing it for over a year.
