Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis announced Wednesday that they will hold a forum with medical experts next week to examine the origins of COVID-19.
On Tuesday, June, 29, Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer and Select Subcommittee Republican lawmakers will hold two witness panels and one panel with members, the Daily Caller reported.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and two other government health officials have been invited to participate in the second panel, but have thus far, not accepted.
The Republicans say that have called on Democrats to investigate if the virus sprung from a Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab, but Democrats have refused to look into the matter.
“Next week, Select Subcommittee Republicans will hold a forum with expert witnesses to advance our investigation into the origins of COVID-19,” Scalise and Comer said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know the truth, even if Washington Democrats refuse to seek it.”
🚨BREAKING🚨
On 6/29, @SteveScalise & @RepJamesComer will hold a forum with experts to examine COVID-19 origins.
Republicans have repeatedly called on Democrats to launch an investigation, but they've refused. Republicans will continue to seek answers.https://t.co/ZC8fP93MNv
— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) June 23, 2021
The First Expert Witness Panel will include:
Brett P. Giroir, former Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. David Asher, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Dr. Richard Muller, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California Berkeley
Dr. Steven Quay, Founder, Atossa TherapeuticsThe Member Panel:
Republican Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul
Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes
Republican Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher
Dr. Fauci, along with Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Dr. David Hassell, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Senior Science Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; were invited to testify at the second witness panel, but have not yet accepted.
Many Republican lawmakers have called for Fauci’s resignation after thousands of his emails from the beginning of the global pandemic were published by The Washington Post and Buzzfeed News. The emails contained comments on wearing masks, the lab leak theory, and more.
“The left-wing media called it a ‘fringe conspiracy theory,’ Big Tech censored it, activists in white lab coats dismissed it and Democrats ignored it, but there is growing evidence Communist China started the pandemic, covered it up, and is responsible for the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans and millions more worldwide,” Scalise and Comer said in a statement.
“Despite Speaker Pelosi’s efforts to create diversions and cover this up, the American people deserve the truth and are demanding accountability, and House Republicans will insist on getting these answers. The House Democrat majority’s refusal to follow the science, listen to the experts, and investigate the origins of COVID-19 is a dereliction of their duty,” Scalise and Comer continued.
In May, Joe Biden announced that he had tasked the Intelligence Community to come to a definitive conclusion on the origins of the coronavirus, and to report back to him in 90 days.
As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China. I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community’s efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work.
Dr. Fauci admitted to lawmakers last month that the National Institutes of Health funneled $600,000 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology over a five-year period to study whether bat coronaviruses could be transmitted to humans.
Fauci testified that the money was sent to the Wuhan lab through the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance to fund “a modest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who were world experts on coronavirus.”
Fauci’s recently released emails show that leading virus experts warned him early on that Covid-19 could be man-made, but he went on to publicly downplay the possibility anyway.
Peter Daszak, the director of EcoHealth, orchestrated “a behind-the-scenes bullying campaign” to make sure the Covid-19 outbreak was not linked to the Wuhan lab, and thanked Fauci in an email for his help in throwing cold water on the lab theory.
The National Pulse meanwhile reported over the weekend that Google, and USAID funded Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance for over a decade.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson discussed that breaking story Tuesday night.
Just the beginning….
Tucker Carlson discusses report that Google funded Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Lab https://t.co/fVgCvDDXVF
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) June 23, 2021