no problem coming out and lying the world. we just saw that with this chinese spy balloon. it s the nature of a communist dictatorship to lie to their own people, to lie to the world. that s republican senator dan sullivan of alaska responding to a new report from the energy department on the origins of covid. we ll take you through the latest developments in just a moment. plus, ukraine says it needs more fighter jets as the war entered its second year, but the pentagon and president biden do not appear ready yet to make that commitment. and meanwhile, the first lady seems to give away the president s plans for 2024. we ll show you what she said. good morning and welcome to way too early on this monday, february 27th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ll start with the new report on the positives of co-vichltd according two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the federal energy department says it has, quote, low confidence th
february 27th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ll start with the new report on the positives of co-vichltd according two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the federal energy department says it has, quote, low confidence that the virus likely originated from a lab leak in wuhan, china, however, it believes covid was not the result of a manmade bioweapon. the wall street journal was the first to report on this classified intelligence report recently given to the white house and key members of congress. yesterday national security adviser jake sullivan was asked about this development. did the coronavirus pandemic start in the lab? is that what they believe now? a number of them have said they don t have enough information to be sure. here s what i can tell you.
street journal michael gordon. it s your reporting that we re all talk about today, the energy department s determination that covid-19 may have indeed come from a lab leak in wuhan, china. tell us a little bit hob the energy department came to that conclusion, but also who agrees or disagrees within the rest of the federal government. so, jonathan, this is a story i did with my colleague warren strobel of the wall street journal, and we ve been digging into this for a while. what happened is in 2021, the intelligence community submitted a report that was an unclassified version in october that laid bare the divisions within the intelligence community whether this arose naturally, meaning a virus that leapt from an animal to human, or whether it might have been an inadvertent accidental lab leak. at that time, the department of energy was agnostic. it hadn t taken a side one way or the other. what shifted is it s now leaning toward the lab theory.
not being viewed as hugely significant among the intelligence community due to interagency disagreements about the origins. it says it will continue to support the work of the intelligence professionals as investigating it as the president directed. china has denied it and has called on all sides to stop plilt sizing the issue. meanwhile a spokesperson for the oversight committee said it s reviewing the classified information provided. the leading theory to this point is that it had been from a bat at a wet market in wuhan naturally occurring. this will just raise more questions. the white house is warning beijing about the consequences of providing military aid to russia on its war with ukraine.
they haven t identified a specific incident in the laboratory that s led to a specific outbreak in wuhan, but they ve been looking at lawrence lawrence livermore has been looking at the chinese academic papers. they re concerned with what kinds of things were going on inside wuhan. there hasn t been made judgment. it means precisely what it says. they re not sure it is what it is, but they re leaning much more in favor what was once considered to be a fringe theory, the lab theory. it s no longer consideredtheoryt unproven. certainly, this will only grow murkier here in the aftermath of this report. michael, tell us a little bit about what the next steps might be, other investigations being launched by the u.s. government, and could there be any sort of disciplinary action take against china is a more definitive