WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Monday introduced an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 by sending a series of letters to existing and former Biden administration officials, documents and testimony.
The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic have asked several people, and added Dr. Anthony Fauci, about speculation of an accidental leak of the coronavirus from a Chinese laboratory.
“This investigation will have to start with where and how this virus emerged so that we can try to predict, prepare for or prevent it from recurring,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the virus subcommittee, said in a statement.
Rep. James Comer, R-Tenn. , chairman of the oversight committee, added that Republicans will “follow the facts” and “hold U. S. government officials accountable. “U. S. citizens who engaged in any kind of cover-up. “
The letters to Fauci, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to fulfill promises made in the 2022 midterm campaign.
Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, accused U. S. intelligence agencies of being a member of the House Intelligence Committee. UU. de hide key facts about his coronavirus research. Last year, Republicans on the committee released a report saying there were “indications” that the virus had possibly evolved. as an internal biological weapon of the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan.
That would contradict an assessment through the U. S. intelligence network. The U. S. Department of Health published unclassified in August 2021 that analysts did not know the virus was a biological weapon, although it would possibly have leaked during a lab accident.
Letters sent on Monday do not require the cooperation of the recipients. But in delivering the Republican report in December, Wenstrup said lawmakers would consider subpoenas if potential witnesses did not cooperate.
It’s incredibly difficult for scientists to definitively identify how diseases arise, but studies by experts around the world have decided that the peak of COVID-19 likely emerged from a live animal market in Wuhan, China.
Initially rejected by top public fitness experts and government officials, speculation that COVID-19 originated from an accidental leak in the lab came under scrutiny after President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the matter in May 2021.
The 90-day review was intended to put pressure on U. S. intelligence agencies. The U. S. government was going to collect more data and review what they already had. Former State Department officials under President Donald Trump had publicly pushed for a more thorough investigation into the origins of the virus, as had scientists and the World Health Organization. But the review proved inconclusive, and intelligence agencies said that unless there is an unforeseen breakthrough, they could not conclude the origin anyway.
Many scientists, adding Fauci, who until December was Biden’s chief medical adviser, say the virus most likely originated in nature and passed from animals to humans, a well-documented phenomenon known as an indirect event. Researchers of the virus have not known it publicly. Any key new clinical evidence that may make speculation of a lab leak more likely.
But Republicans accused Fauci of falsehood before Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health had funded “gain-of-function” studies — the practice of improving a virus in a lab to examine its possible effect in the future. Genuine global — in a virology lab in Wuhan. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, even suggested to Attorney General Merrick Garland that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci’s statements.
Fauci, who has been the nation’s top infectious disease expert for both Republican and Democratic presidents, called the GOP complaint nonsense.
Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. , have said in the past that an October 2021 letter from the NIH to Congress contradicts Fauci. But there is no transparent evidence or clinical consensus that “gain-of-function” studies were funded through NIH, and there is no link between U. S. -funded studies and NIH-funded studies. The emergence of COVID-19 in the U. S. and the emergence of COVID-19. The NIH has continually argued that its investment did not move on to such studies involving the spread of infectivity and lethality of a pathogen.
However, Fauci indicated in November that he would “cooperate fully and testify” if Republicans followed through on his plans to investigate the origin of COVID.
“I have no challenge to testify: we can protect and everything we’ve said,” he told reporters at a White House briefing last year.