GOP Reps Introduce Bill to Investigate HHS Failure to Review Grant to Wuhan Lab

By Andrew Thornebrooke June 2, 2021 at 4:31pm

House Republicans are launching an investigation into the Department of Health and Human Services following the revelation that a National Institutes of Health review board never scrutinized U.S. grant funding to China that may have aided in the development of COVID-19.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The NIH used $600,000 American taxpayer dollars to fund research into enhancing coronavirus variants in bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, increasingly believed to be the origin place of COVID-19, according to the New York Post.

The Post highlighted that the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for which Anthony Fauci has been the director since 1984, granted over half a million dollars to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance group, which then gave money to the Wuhan lab.

Now, Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin are spearheading a congressional effort to uncover why such use of American tax dollars was never scrutinized and whether the money directly aided the creation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What did Dr. Fauci know about the research being done in the Wuhan lab when he approved American tax dollars to fund it?” Jordan tweeted Wednesday.

What did Dr. Fauci know about the research being done in the Wuhan lab when he approved American tax dollars to fund it? https://t.co/VFzYlIoGXR

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 2, 2021

Regarding that question, it is far too early to say anything definitively other than this: Fauci either knew a lot more than he has thus far stated or was completely oblivious to his own department’s activities.

Did Fauci know about a Wuhan lab leak?

Currently, the former seems far more likely.

The Post reported that NIH Director Francis Collins said of the money, “We are, of course, not aware of other sources of funds or other activities they [China] might have undertaken outside of what our approved grant allowed.”

It would seem Fauci and Co.’s defense appears to amount to “Who can really say what China does with the money we give it?”

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul also personally took issue with Fauci’s apparent obfuscations regarding the origins of COVID-19 and U.S. involvement in gain of function research, and joined in the condemnation of HHS’ apparent failures.

“We have this in black and white from a peer-reviewed journal: She [a Wuhan scientist] said the funding came from Dr. Fauci’s National Institute, NIAID,” Paul said. “This is Dr. Fauci’s baby for 40 years. She lists him in the credits. He can’t escape this. He did the funding.”

When asked if he believed Fauci committed perjury with regard to the origins of COVID-19, Paul said simply, “Absolutely. He lied to the American people.”

The investigation led by Jordan and Gallagher looks to be taking a similar tack. In a joint letter published on Twitter, the two congressmen directly asked David Christian Hassell, a senior HHS science adviser, to what extent the office communicated with Fauci about the grant funding and demanded answers for the American people.

“Americans deserve answers about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken millions of lives and destroyed many more,” the lawmakers wrote. “Mounting evidence suggests that research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, partially supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars, may have been the origin of the pandemic.”

? #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan and @RepGallagher demand answers on how U.S. taxpayer dollars could fund dangerous research at an unsafe Chinese laboratory. pic.twitter.com/1Ae8xy53i8

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) June 2, 2021

So, this is where we are. American tax dollars funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Did that research incorporate gain of function and did it result in the creation of COVID-19? For now, we are left to shrug.

You may find yourself asking, how on earth could this happen?

Alas, the answer is the same as it often is in America: A faceless and labyrinthine government bureaucracy, which exists for no purpose other than to continue itself and to bring profit to those who expand its influence, decided to use Americans’ money to pursue dangerous research because it could.

Yes, Americans do need answers, and this investigation is one way to get them. Americans also need to dismantle this horrific machinery of state, however, which allows such crimes to go not only unpunished, but unknown.

We still know almost nothing substantial about the origin of a pandemic that brought the entire world to its knees, and it looks like a class of technocrats, who are still in power, may have contributed to its development with our own money. If that’s not a condemnation of the entire apparatus of so-called liberal governance, I don’t know what is.

Welcome back to the deep state, where everything is made up and the laws don’t matter.

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