EMAIL · 13 July 2023
RE: Briefing to COVID Subcommittee on COVID Origins
Provenance: Six-message chain, 12–13 July 2023 · participants include Morgan Muir and Michael L. Collins · attaches the 2021 HPSCI readout · 3 pages.
An exchange about who should brief Rep. Wenstrup’s COVID subcommittee, which surfaces two separate problems: an unexplained claim attributed to the DNI about CIA’s internal split, and standing advice from Hill staffers to keep one ODNI officer away from Wenstrup briefings.
12 Jul, 10:41 am — The author tells Morgan Muir that CIA and OLA say he will lead the origins briefing for the subcommittee on the 27th, and offers support. Notes the staffer-level briefing the previous month went well, though DOE and FBI did not explain their assessments particularly well.
The same message flags a strange question from the lead majority staffer: according to the staffer, the DNI told Rep. Wenstrup that CIA was two-thirds in the "lab leak" camp but was being held back by one-third of the analysts. The CIA briefer said she had never heard that, as did the author. CBD management had asked several times whether the DNI actually said it or whether the claim had another source.
11:35 am — Muir replies that this is news to him; he had heard the author did not think they were the right choice but believed it was still open.
12:02 pm — The author denies ever saying that, and notes they have often joked about how the last Wenstrup COVID-O briefing went but are more than happy to brief again.
12:57 pm — Michael L. Collins: "Do you need me to call OLA on this? You should be the briefer."
13 Jul, 8:46 am — OLA reports a push for an open briefing alongside the classified one, and since Muir was doing the open session they thought he should do both. More concerning to the author: OLA had been advised by staffers, presumably from HPSCI, not to have them attend briefings involving Wenstrup — guidance apparently dating to late 2021 and the COVID-O briefing given after the 2021 NICA was published.
Item 13 of the ODNI COVID-19 document release of 18 June 2026, held complete and readable in the V.A.D.E.S. archive at DEFROST.WORLD.