Trump-era intelligence chief wants Beijing Olympics moved due COVID-19 ‘cover-up’

John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence (DNI) during the Trump administration, is calling for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved out of Beijing because of a “cover up” by China regarding the origins of COVID-19.

Ratcliffe, in an op-ed published by Fox News, accused China of continuing to perpetrate “a massive cover up of the virus’s origins and the circumstances surrounding its initial outbreak.”

He said the Winter Games “should go on,” but argued that the world and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should not let Beijing enjoy the benefits of hosting them “while rejecting transparency and refusing to allow inquiries into, much less answering for, the deaths of millions of people around the world.”

Ratcliffe cited Beijing’s recent rejection of a World Health Organization plan for opening a second phase of its study into the origins of COVID-19, calling the development “remarkable” before criticizing both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the WHO.

“This was remarkable not only because of China’s continued belligerence, but also because the WHO was once complicit, caving to the CCP’s initial pressure to dismiss the lab leak theory and downplay the CCP’s coverup,” Ratcliffe wrote.

“But now the facts are too hard for even the WHO — and hopefully the IOC — to ignore,” he added.

Ratcliffe, who served from May 2020 through the end of former President Trump’s term, said he knows “particularly well” about China’s efforts to cover up circumstances surrounding the virus because of his time serving as DNI, and contended that the lab-leak theory, which alleges that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, is “more like a probability, if not very close to a certainty.”

Ratcliffe accused the CCP of trying to “stonewall legitimate investigations, quell critical voices, and engage in a worldwide propaganda campaign to divert blame from themselves, even going so far as to absurdly assert that the virus was created by the U.S. military.”

He also wrote that the CCP is “no friend of the world.”

“The seven Olympic values are friendship, excellence, respect, courage, determination, inspiration and equality. The CCP’s coverup of the virus’s origins have proven once again that they are no friend of the world,” Ratcliffe wrote.

“Their entire system is designed to only inspire fealty to their oppressive regime, which rejects equality — and even basic dignity — to minorities living under its rule. Beijing should not be allowed to host the 2022 Olympic Games,” he added.