The Sinclaire Broadcast Group is reporting on a classified study of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 conducted a year ago by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Department of Energy’s premier biodefense research institution, concluded “the novel coronavirus at the heart of the current pandemic may have originated in a laboratory in China.” Sinclair is represented in Tulsa by KTUL, Channel 8.

“Researchers at Livermore’s “Z Division,” the lab’s intelligence unit, issued the report May 27, 2020, classified “Top Secret.” Its existence is previously undisclosed. The Z Division report assessed that both the lab-origin theory and the zoonotic theory were plausible and warranted further investigation. Sinclair has not reviewed the report but confirmed its contents through interviews with multiple sources who read it or were briefed on its contents,” the broadcast report noted.

Also following the story, The Blaze notes previous reports including from former head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom, “Sir Richard Dearlove, who ran the spy agency from 1999 to 2004, recently argued in an interview with a British newspaper that the coronavirus was “far more likely” to have come from a lab than to have jumped from animals to humans.

“That theory has picked up considerable steam since the start of the pandemic early last year as a growing amount of circumstantial evidence piles up. That evidence includes the fact that risky “gain of function” research was being conducted on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology over the last several years — and that U.S. diplomats warned the federal government about the dangers involved.

“Last month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill which, in part, calls for the U.S. government to conduct its own investigation into the origins of the pandemic, including whether or not the virus leaked from a Chinese lab,” The Blaze concluded.

In an email to Sinclair, a Livermore spokesperson confirmed the existence of the report but declined to provide additional information. “Because the report you are referring to is classified,” wrote Lynda Seaver, director of public affairs, “it would be inappropriate for our lab to discuss this.”

Haines added that Chinese leaders “have not been forthcoming through this process,” and that U.S. analysis “is not based on an assumption that what they say is true.”

The Sinclair report continued, “The lab-origin theory is predicated on the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – located, like the wet markets, in the central Chinese city that was the epicenter of the outbreak – has long been at the forefront of China’s research on bat coronaviruses.

“According to a “fact sheet” released by the State Department on January 15, WIV personnel work closely with the Chinese military and have conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus with the closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2 percent). The lab has also published findings from “gain-of-function” research, which is aimed at increasing the transmissibility of viruses among humans.

“This area of scientific activity, experts told Sinclair, carries a “dual-use”: It supports the development of new vaccines and therapeutics but can also be used in covert biological- and chemical-weapons programs, which China is suspected of maintaining. The State Department fact sheet said China is working “to engineer chimeric viruses.” In its 2021 report, issued this month, the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (AVC) said the “dual-use applications” of China’s scientific research “raise concerns about its compliance with Article I” of the Biological Weapons Convention enacted in 1975, to which China is a signatory. That article prohibits member states from pursuing biological weapons.

“The “dual use” of gain-of-function research has in turn divided proponents of the lab-origin theory into two main camps. Both believe SARS-CoV-2 accidentally “leaked” from WIV personnel, but one camp attributes the accident to legitimate medical research, the other to prohibited biological-weapons research.

“Analysts said the State Department’s claim of a close working relationship between WIV and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese military, was well founded. “Any sort of institution that works on matters that could be construed as relating to national security – which the Wuhan Lab would absolutely fall under that category – we should expect standard operating practice is that they would have a close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and with the PLA,” said American University history professor Justin Jacobs, a China scholar,” click here for the full report from the Sinclair Broadcast Group.