GOP launches probe into COVID origins with letter to Fauci
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony.
The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab.
“This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chair 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 that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”
The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign.
Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused U.S. intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation into the coronavirus. Republicans on the committee last year issued a staff report arguing that there are “indications” that the virus may have been developed as a bioweapon inside the China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.
That would contradict a U.S. intelligence community assessment released in unclassified form in August 2021 that said analysts do not believe the virus was a bioweapon, though it may have leaked in a lab accident.
The letters sent Monday do not require the cooperation of...