Top House Republican slams intelligence report on COVID origins

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, slammed a U.S. Intelligence Community report on the origins of COVID-19. 

The report, released Friday in response to Congress's COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, stated that five intelligence agencies think COVID was created by natural exposure to an infected animal while the CIA and another unstated agency are unable to determine the virus's origins. 

"We passed a law saying, 'Declassify the information that you have about the COVID and Wuhan lab's activities.' What they did is they basically went and -- and did a paper on what they believe about the intelligence they've looked at," Turner said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation," according to a transcript from the outlet.

Even if intelligence communities gave classified information about the pandemic's origins to members of Congress, it still would not follow the law, which requires the information to be declassified for the American public to read, Turner added.

Information in the intelligence report "contradicts" that which the House Intelligence Committee received, Turner also said. 

"We want the intelligence released, not their opinion about the intelligence. If we wanted their opinion, we would have asked for it. We passed a law saying, 'Declassify it.' It's the law of the land. Release this so the American public and see it," the congressman also said.

Meanwhile, other U.S. government agencies, such as the Energy Department and the FBI, concluded that the virus likely started in a lab in Wuhan, China.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.