State Department leaders were warned not to pursue COVID origin investigation: former officials

State Department leaders were warned not to pursue an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, former department officials confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, amid fears that it would bring attention to U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan Institute where the virus may have escaped.

The outlet reported that Thomas DiNanno, a former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote in a January memo that staff from two bureaus "warned" leaders within his office not to probe the origins of the virus because it risked opening "a can of worms." Multiple former State Department officials told Fox News that the reported memo accurately describes what was happening at State at the time and that there was an effort among some officials at the department to oppose an extensive investigation into a possible lab leak.