The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who found evidence that a Chinese lab leak caused COVID-19, was "silenced" and was not allowed to present the findings from the August 2021 report to US President Joe Biden, The New York Post reported. 

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The report concluded that the virus behind COVID-19 was "probably not genetically engineered". 

During that time, a popular theory emerged, suggesting that the virus spread from a bat at a Wuhan wet market, the place where the virus was first reported in 2019. 

President Biden ordered an inquiry in May 2021 by US intelligence agencies and national laboratories. The National Intelligence Council (NIC), a body of senior intelligence officers organised the review, in which the findings were presented by Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence (DNI), and two of her senior analysts, to President Biden and his top aides. 

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Also read: Wuhan lab leak likely behind Covid pandemic, finds US investigation STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Jason Bannan, a former senior scientist at the FBI, said that he is surprised that the findings were not presented to the president, given the agency's confidence in its assessment. 

Bannan, a microbiologist and former senior FBI scientist, spent much of his life investigating the origins of COVID-19, along with the FBI.

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He was excluded from a key National Intelligence Council (NIC) briefing with US President Biden, The New York Post reported. 

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“The scientists who had the subject matter expertise were silenced,” a source said according to the Post, adding that the US President and other officials were "completely unwitting" about the evidence. 

Bannan also stressed that the FBI was the only agency that firmly believed the virus likely originated from a laboratory, yet it wasn’t invited to share its findings. 

'Surprising that White House didn't ask'

“Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Bannan said.

 “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask," he added.

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Meanwhile, whistleblower Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy said that federal grant documents outlining a "blueprint" for engineering viruses like SARS-CoV-2 were inappropriately classified.

Bannan has now emphasised the need to reexamine what was left out of the intelligence community’s review. 

“What ended up on the intelligence community’s cutting-room floor needs to be re-examined," he said. 

(With inputs from agencies)