FBI Director Chris Wray appeared on Fox News’ Special Report today to discuss the lab leak theory and the recent DOE report which concluded (with low confidence) that the lab leak was the most likely explanation.

Asked what the FBI believed, Wray replied, “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.” He added, “You’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government controlled lab that killed millions of Americans.”

Wray also pointed out that the investigation was ongoing and that most of the details remained classified. “The Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here,” he said in reference to the investigation. Here’s the clip.

Watch; FBI Director Chris Wray tells Fox’s @BretBaier that “Origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.. the Chinese government it seems to me has been doing its best to thwart and obfuscate the work we’re doing.” pic.twitter.com/KjwvlFpYnS

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) February 28, 2023

NBC News has already done a full story on this interview. They note, correctly, that the intel agencies remain split on this:

A report commissioned by President Joe Biden on the origins of Covid, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in August 2021, showed that one U.S. intelligence agency had assessed with moderate confidence that the virus infected humans after a lab-associated incident; four other agencies assessed with low confidence that the virus emerged naturally. The report did not name the agencies, but intelligence officials have told NBC News that the FBI was the agency with moderate confidence.

Sources have said the CIA is one of two intelligence agencies that are undecided on the virus’s origins.

If you watch Fox News today the network is treating this as a settled question and dunking on anyone who ever dared to doubt it. And if you read the LA Times you’re getting the opposite treatment, i.e. the science is settled.

If you’re confused about how a judgment made with “low confidence” can result in a conclusion that something is “most likely,” join the club. I’ll come back to that. But let’s start with the basics: There is no evidence — not a smidgen, particle, speck or iota — that COVID leaked from a lab. There never has been.

The virology and epidemiology communities, which base their conclusions on empirical data, overwhelmingly favor the conclusion that the pandemic originated in human contacts with infected wildlife, known as the “zoonotic” hypothesis. That’s how previous pathogens reached the human community, and the evidence that it has done so in this case is powerful and getting progressively stronger…

The Journal said the Energy Department based its ostensibly changed viewpoint on “new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government,” but didn’t describe that new intelligence, nor did it identify the academic literature or outside experts the agency supposedly used.

Michael Hiltzik is a partisan hack but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily wrong. In this case, he says there’s no new evidence and then admits the new evidence DOE supposedly relied on is classified so we can’t know if it’s of any value. Well, it’s definitely one or the other. Of course he doesn’t actually know if there’s new evidence or if it has value. He’s just assuming it doesn’t because the wrong people have promoted the lab leak in the past.

My own take is that both Hiltzik and Fox are both sounding too confident. This may be the most unsatisfying of stories, one in which the truth can’t be known for certain, at least not at the moment. Whether that’s because China is hiding evidence or because they were sloppy and careless cleaning up the wet market is an open question. The only thing we know for certain is that China has been dragging its feet and lying about it every step of the way. That is very suspicious but it’s also what police states do.

Finally, a point about the media coverage. I’ve watched several clips like this NBC News report which make a big deal of the DOE having low confidence in its conclusion. Fair enough that should be reported. They then point out that four intel agencies believe this was the result of natural spillover. But unlike the printed story I quote above the fact that those agencies also had low confidence in their own conclusion rarely seems to make it on air. That shouldn’t happen. If low confidence means something is barely worth mentioning then don’t use other low confidence conclusions as if they were a definitive rebuttal.