You have this backwards. It was 100% verboten to discuss a lab leak until 5 minutes ago. WMDs were conjured to get us into war with Iraq. We don't even need such pretenses to go to war anymore. So why would the IC suddenly give credence to a lab leak? Are we going to war with China? No?

How about: the lab leak hypothesis is gaining traction because it's one of two likely scenarios and should ALWAYS have been taken seriously. It was only ignored because Trump said it, so therefore it can't be true. Good critical thinking skills, there.

The US govt is at least as complicit if there was a lab leak as China, because both of these authoritarian regimes were funding gain of function research - otherwise known as playing with fire for a bureaucratic purpose that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We have to create a dangerous pathogen so that we can uh... learn how to fight it? Makes sense in the same way that setting your house on fire is a good way to learn fire safety.

There is plenty of evidence for a lab leak. The fact that we've been playing dumb for the past year makes it unlikely we'll ever have a smoking gun leading back to the lab, but this isn't a court of law. You and I are allowed to notice the clues here and come to a conclusion. That conclusion should not be colored by what some idiot in Washington says - and if you let your logical compass get spun around by people like Trump or folks in the IC you are not likely to land on the truth very easily.