House Republicans are pressuring the Biden administration and other officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, to provide documents, information and testimony about the origin of the coronavirus.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer, R-Ky., sent letters Monday to six officials, including Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly 40 years before retiring from the government at the end of last year.
Letters also were sent to Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organization that reportedly funded coronavirus research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology; Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines; Dr. Francis Collins, acting science advisor to President Joe Biden; and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. They are follow-ups to letters sent to each in December by Republicans on the select subcommittee.
“The American people deserve real answers after years of suffering through the coronavirus pandemic and related government policies,” Wenstrup said Monday in a news release. “This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again.
“Government scientists and government-funded researchers have so far been less-than-forthcoming in their knowledge and actions, including work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and potential pandemic pathogens. We can’t accept more years of stonewalling.”
The news release stated an investigation by Oversight Committee Republicans into the virus’ origin that started in the last Congress revealed evidence that “COVID-19 likely originated from the Wuhan lab and the Chinese Communist Party covered it up; U.S. taxpayer dollars were being funneled to the Wuhan lab to conduct risky gain-of-function research on novel bat coronaviruses; and Dr. Fauci was aware of this information at the start of the pandemic and may have acted to conceal the information by intentionally downplaying the lab leak theory.”
“We will continue to follow the facts to determine what could have been done differently to better protect Americans from this virus and hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover up accountable,” Comer said.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.