An inspector general probe has been launched to investigate the potential theft of U.S. government grants that funded research projects at the Wuhan lab in China, CBS News reported Monday.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funneled potentially millions of U.S. taxpayer payer dollars through Dr. Peter Daszak’s non-profit EcoHealth Alliance to the CCP-controlled Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“What I’ve found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds,” said Diane Cutler, a former federal investigator with over two decades of experience combating white-collar crime and healthcare fraud. “It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research,” she added.
Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) hired Cutler to investigate U.S. government grants that supported risky gain-of-function research in China leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. This type of research involves making pathogens and viruses more lethal and virulent in a laboratory, purportedly to study them.
Cutler took her evidence to the USAID Inspector General, which has reportedly launched a new probe.
She told CBS News she has viewed over 50,000 documents, and it looks like the U.S. government may have “made duplicate payments for possible medical supplies, equipment, travel and salaries.”
A spokesperson for USAID declined to comment. A USAID inspector general spokesperson declined to comment “on the existence of a specific open investigation.” The press office for NIH did not respond to CBS News’ questions.
Sources told CBS News the investigation of possible double-billing could take at least six months to conclude.
Sen. Marshall, a physician who practiced medicine for more than 25 years, said he is calling for a 9/11-style commission.
“I think there’s 1.1 million reasons that American taxpayers should care,” he said, referring to the number of American lives that have allegedly been lost to COVID. “You’ll have a plane crashes. We want to find out why the plane crashes. We go to any lengths to do that. And the hope is we don’t have another plane crash for the same reason.”
During last week’s House hearing on the origins of COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Robert Redfield testified that gain-of-function research “probably caused the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”
The virologist said that it is likely that American tax dollars funded the high-risk virus research that led to COVID being unleashed on the world.
“I think it [taxpayer funding] did—not only from the NIH, but from the State Department, USAID, and the Department of Defense,” Redfield said.
The United States government agency was still doling out millions of taxpayer dollars to the EcoHealth Alliance as recently as October of 2021, long after it became known that the Daszak-led operation had funneled federal grant money to the Wuhan Lab. The Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a $4.67 million five-year grant to EcoHealth Alliance in late 2021.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told RealClearPolitics last month that Joe Biden believes gain-of-function research is “prudent” and “important to help prevent future pandemics.”
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