The director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Wednesday denied rejecting the theory that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a laboratory while labeling the theory an “extraordinary” one. Dr. Francis Collins, who was appointed to the post during the Obama administration, sent an email to people inside the NIH in April 2020 with the subject line “conspiracy gains momentum,” according to a newly released batch of messages. The body of the email was entirely redacted, save for a link to a Mediaite article about a Fox News segment. During the segment, Fox host Bret Baier said sources had told him that it was increasingly likely that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, started in a lab in Wuhan, China. “They’re saying it occurred naturally because China was trying to show that they could be as good or better than the U.S. in handling viruses, discovering viruses, …