This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The COVID-19 lab-leak theory apparently no longer is a "conspiracy."

That's after the Department of Energy, which runs a network of scientific labs across the U.S., said the pandemic that killed millions around the world likely came from that source.

Just the News confirmed the DOE reportedly concluded COVID-19 likely originated in the Wuhan, China, lab where such viruses were being developed and enhanced.

The report, citing the Wall Street Journal, explained, "The agency was undecided about how the virus emerged but informed the White House and key members of Congress in a classified intelligence report about new evidence leading to the updated theory."

The WSJ said the DOE found COVID "most likely arose from a laboratory leak."

The federal department previously had said it was undecided on how the virus emerged.

The Energy Department statement brings it into alignment with the FBI, which concluded the pandemic likely resulted from a lab leak, which the FBI said it determined with "moderate confidence" in 2021. The DOE"s decision was made with "low confidence."

Just the News reported, "The Central Intelligence Agency remains undecided about whether COVID was leaked from a lab or was naturally transmitted."

China has denied everything that suggests any links, even though the virus originated in Wuhan in late 2019, weeks before it blew up with a worldwide disaster.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar and commentator on legal issues who has testified before Congress, said, "The Department of Energy has concluded that Covid-19 likely originated from a Chinese lab. According to the report, American intelligence has found evidence to support the long-dismissed 'lab theory.' This has led to another media 'my bad' moment where news outlets are shrugging that the theory may not be a conspiracy or racist theory after all. As usual, there is little attention to the experts who were shredded for raising the theory or the reporters who insisted that this was a debunked conspiracy theory."

He said, "For my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science."

He noted, "For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists. Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of 'anti-Chinese racism' and 'toxic white masculinity.'"

He pointed out, "No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a 'debunked' coronavirus 'conspiracy theory.'"

Further, "President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic, and his administration reportedly shut down the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus."

Turley said it was just the latest "media narrative" to be proven false, following the Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden "Russian Disinformation," the "Lafayette Park "Photo Op" conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett and "Migrant Whipping."

He said the censorship scandal remains.

"Recently, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret FBI effort to censor citizens on social media. This included undisclosed efforts by members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) to get Twitter to ban a columnist and target critics. In a House hearing, democratic leaders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). called for more censorship and opposed investigations into the censorship efforts," Turley wrote. "President Biden previously called for more censorship and accused Big Tech of 'killing people' by not censoring more views deemed 'COVID misinformation.' The opposite is true. By suppressing alternative scientific and policy views, the public was denied a full debate over mask efficacy, vaccine side effects, COVID origins, and other important issues. Many of those questions are only being recognized as legitimate and worthy of debate."