A specific "tasking" seeking information about the outbreak's early days was sent last week to the Defense Intelligence Agency. The CIA got similar instructions.
WASHINGTON — The White House has ordered intelligence agencies to comb through communications intercepts, human source reporting, satellite imagery and other data to establish whether China and the World Health Organization initially hid what they knew about the emerging coronavirus pandemic, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter told NBC News.
WHO officials have said they gave the world enough time to respond to their early warnings about the coronavirus. Chinese officials have criticized what they describe as a delayed response by Trump.As part of the tasking, intelligence agencies were asked to determine what the WHO knew about two research labs studying coronaviruses in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first observed.
"The president is now running against China as much as anyone," said a person close to the president. Critics see the White House focus on China and the WHO as an effort to distract attention from the open question of what warnings Trump got in January and February from his own health and intelligence advisers during a time when he was downplaying the severity of the virus.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Randy Rainbow's Donald Trump Parody Videos: Watch The Best OnesHere are 33 times RandyRainbow parodied Trump since the start of his 2016 presidential campaign.
Read more »
Randy Rainbow's Donald Trump Parody Videos: Watch The Best OnesHere are 33 of Randy Rainbow&39;s best Trump roasts to date.
Read more »
Trump administration asks intelligence agencies to find out whether China, WHO hid COVID-19 informationThe White House has ordered intelligence agencies to establish whether China and the WHO initially hid what they knew about the emerging coronavirus pandemic, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell NBCNews
Read more »
What the fight between Biden and Trump over China means for the 2020 electionExperts said the response from Biden signals a willingness to take a page out of Trump's playbook to get in front of the president's attacks.
Read more »
Trump cuts U.S. research on bat-human virus transmission over China tiesThe Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the pandemic’s origins
Read more »
Trump says China could have stopped coronavirus, Beijing decries shifting of blameU.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that China could have stopped the coronavirus before it swept the globe and that his administration was conducting 'serious investigations' into what happened.
Read more »