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A heated hearing produced no new evidence that Peter Daszak or his nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance, were in on the Covid outbreak.
By Benjamin Mueller
House Republicans on Wednesday demanded that the president of a nonprofit that searches for viruses be criminally investigated and barred from federal funding, a sharp escalation in their crusade against scientists in the United States who Republicans say had ties to the origin of Covid-19. obscured its true beginnings.
During a stormy three-hour hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Republican lawmakers at times raised their voices before the nonprofit’s leader, Peter Daszak, and said they thought he would fare badly as a defendant in criminal court.
The nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which receives federal investment to examine global threats from wild animal viruses, came under suspicion following a proposal it made in 2018 to partner with Chinese scientists on new coronavirus experiments that Republicans say could have led to the pandemic. although this commission never received any investment.
But in an in-depth report and questioning Wednesday, Republicans provided no new data recommending that EcoHealth Alliance or Dr. Daszak were concerned about the coronavirus outbreak. And they presented no evidence that pointed directly to a coronavirus leak from a lab in China. with or without EcoHealth’s involvement, a stumbling block in its years-long efforts to engage Chinese and U. S. scientists in the early stages of the pandemic.
Democrats on the subcommittee took credit for the lack of new evidence, even as they echoed Republican considerations that Dr. Daszak had been outspoken about his collaboration with Chinese scientists.
The Republican-led subcommittee reviewed nearly half a million pages of documents and conducted more than 100 hours of personal interviews in its investigation into the origin of Covid, Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, the most sensible Democrat on the panel, said Wednesday.
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