Australian Spy Agency Collected “Signals Intelligence” On China COVID Origins: Former State Department Investigator

David Asher, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and the lead investigator of the State Department’s Covid-19 origins investigation during President Trump’s first term, appeared on Sky News on Tuesday. Asher disclosed that Australian spy agencies had previously collected signals intelligence concerning the origins of the virus in Wuhan, China. 

What Asher means by signals intelligence is the interception of voice, text, and other communications (e.g., phone calls, emails, and radio transmissions). Australian spy agencies conducted much of this in Asia, which the CIA later obtained. 

“I never thought the intel picture based on human intelligence, which is what the CIA has, but it was reasonably clear based on the reactions of senior Chinese leaders that something terrible had gone wrong inside Wuhan, specifically inside the Wuhan Institute of Urology and perhaps also the Wuhan University and the CDC … they shared certain programs together,” Asher told Sky News host Sharri Markson. 

He said, “I think there will be much more coming out – with CIA Director John Ratcliffe – who you interviewed previously – is adamant about declassifying information or releasing information that is already declassified. There is going to be signals intelligence and how much of that makes its way out – just trust me – there was a lot of it.” 

Sky News Markson asked Asher: “What do you mean by signals intelligence that hasn’t come out yet?” 

“Just picking up phone calls, picking up the emails, things like that … just messages between different people, I can’t comment on what they are, but it’s no secret we do this. Much of our collection is actually done in Australia, as you know,” Asher responded. 

He continued: “So your government is fully aware, which is another reason why they are really puzzled and dismayed that the Australian government, which has the same information … as we do, has been so passive, especially given the fact that your Prime Minister originally came out and said that we had to have an investigation.”

“It’s just sort of pathetic if you ask me,” Asher noted, who was referring to Western governments burying the Covid lab leak theory during the Biden-Harris administration. 

Asher’s interview with the Australian media outlet came shortly after the CIA released an assessment identifying the Wuhan lab as the most likely origin of Covid. It only took a change in administration for this conclusion to be made public. Our view is that the CIA knew all along – with high confidence - about lab origins. Meanwhile, former FBI Director Christopher Wray stated in 2023 that the virus “most likely” originated from the Wuhan lab.

Yet during President Biden’s first term, the radical leftists in the administration deployed the taxpayer-funded censorship blob to combat lab origins and maintain the official gov’t narrative that Covid originated naturally. 

Recall Zero Hedge was temporarily banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Google over ‘Covid conspiracy theories’ (when we first suggested in January 2020 that the fact there was a Level 4 virus lab in Wuhan.

Plus this.

And this. 

FAUCI DECRIES POLITICAL POLARIZATION IMPEDING U.S. COVID-19 RESPONSE: MEDIA pic.twitter.com/OIMiNbpNVA

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 26, 2022

Asher also noted in the interview that Biden’s failure to disclose the true origin of Covid to the American people ”is another indication how much Biden was in the pocket of the Chinese government.” 

Biden’s “financial interests with the Chinese are far greater than anyone ever understood. I think there’s going to be some sort of Department of Justice investigation related to that and as well as there is a congressional investigation going on,” Asher said. (hence the pardons)…

This is what federal investigators are looking at… 

Was Biden China’s Manchurian Candidate The Entire Time? https://t.co/NdxEXldOXt

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 21, 2025

Asher’s full interview: 

A mandate the American people gave Trump is transparency. Hopefully, that extends to Covid origins, ensuring accountability for those who funded and caused the pandemic so the world can move forward. Perhaps that’s why Trump is reportedly preparing to sign an executive order banning federal funding of gain-of-function research. 

This is a dark day in American history — at the State Department we knew something very bad was happening with an emerging pandemic in China, which the Chinese Communist Government refused to even discuss with us. However in retrospect, it is shocking that our own government… https://t.co/CC9h3A1rpm

— David Asher (@dasher8090) February 1, 2025

. . .