A former State Department official who led a task force investigating the origins of the coronavirus said President Biden would need to back up his new investigation with the threat of sanctions if China is to reveal the truth about COVID-19.
David Asher said the virus's genetic structure - a bat coronavirus combined with elements from one that infects pangolins - backed his hypothesis that the pandemic was triggered by a laboratory accident.
He suggested the evidence pointed to a leak from a biological weapons program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In an interview with DailyMail.com, he said the lack of evidence supporting natural evolution and China's 'great wall of deceit, lies and disinformation' all led back to the laboratory.
'What's the probable cause behind it? That the Wuhan institute, as we put in our declassified factsheet, was engaged in classified military programs,' he said referring to a State Department document published in January.
'And let me tell you, if we thought the programs were defensive in orientation, we would have said so.
'I can't comment any further.'
The origins of the virus are under fresh scrutiny with the collapse of the scientific consensus that it emerged from human contact with an infected animal.
Three members of staff Wuhan Institute of Virology were reported to have sought medical help for COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, adding to growing speculation that the virus escaped from the facility triggered a pandemic
This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory (centre L) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. - Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world's most dangerous diseases and has been accused by some top US officials of being the source of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic
This week President Biden admitted intelligence agencies were split on the two possible theories, ascribing only 'low or moderate confidence' to the idea that it arose naturally or that it emerged from a laboratory.
Asher said he welcomed Biden's 90-day intelligence push to get to the bottom of the question.
But he said the president's investigation would need to be supported with the threat of sanctions to get inside China's cover up.
Asher was part of the State Department’s arms control and verification bureau when he started to study the coronavirus in September last year.
After reviewing government research on the origins of COVID-19 he realized there was little evidence to support the scientific consensus that the coronavirus had evolved naturally.
Asher said biostatisticians analyzed the genetic sequence of COVID-19 and concluded that the probably of it evolving naturally were in the millions or billions to one.
'I certainly believed it was natural, but the more I started to look into it, the more I realized no you might want to look at the supernatural side of things,' he said.
A review of the coronavirus's genetic code - including bat and pangolin virus sequences plus a third distinctive portion - by biostatisticians all but ruled out a natural origin
'They ran this to basically see what the odds of these three genetic features being combined. One in 13 million was the first lab came back. The next was a 13.8 billion chance,' he said.
'Either way, it doesn't matter. A pretty insignificant chance these things would be natural.'
However, his investigation was halted by the Biden administration.
And Asher has accused another former State Department official, Christopher Ford, of obstructing his investigation.
For his part, Ford said a departmental review concluded the statistical analysis was 'junk science.'
Either way, Asher said he hoped Biden's fresh probe would get to the truth, but it would need the sort of sustained international effort that won the Cold War.
He suggested a rewards program and witness protection for defecting scientists.
'I'd put five to ten million dollars on the line for every single person from the Wuhan institute or anyone in China's govt who has inside information,' he said.
'I'd give them a settlement package, a witness protection-equivalent package, if they switch sides.'
A team working for Joe Biden, (right, on the White House lawn on Tuesday) shut down the State Department inquiry after being briefed about it in February and March. The investigation began under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (left) in September
This week President Biden said he would continue to press China to participate in a full, transparent investigation to find out whether its Wuhan lab (pictured) was the source of the COVID-19 pandemic
The Trump administration's maximum pressure strategy for Iran might offer a model, he added.
'To get answers you are going to have to increase the cost to China,' he said.
'You have to do things like sanctioning the Chinese in the next six months if they don't cooperate.'
He said there were many unanswered questions: Why did France withdraw from a 2018 agreement to conduct joint research at the Wuhan laboratory?
How did China go from having millions of people sick in the first months of the pandemic to getting the disease under control by April 2020?
And why did China stop declaring its SARS-related biodefense research at the Wuhan lab in 2016?
His list of questions comes amid growing international calls for the origin of the pandemic to be examined again.
Both the U.S. and Britain are stepping up demands for the World Health Organization to take a closer, including a new visit to China where the first human infections were detected.
And House Republican Whip Steve Scalise and more than 200 of his GOP colleagues are calling for Nancy Pelosi to direct her Democrat-led committees to investigate China's complicity.
'There are still a lot of questions. And the big question is why in 16 months nearly the Chinese have never stopped lying to us, provided no cooperation, no real access,' he said.
'Now the president has said we have to restart the thing, which is pretty incredible.
'This is the biggest intelligence failure in the history of the world.'
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