Cotton: Fauci, Collins Don’t Want to Look at Wuhan Lab Because They Were Sending U.S. Tax Dollars to Fund Dangerous Research

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) insists National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci were reluctant to discuss and investigate the possible role the Wuhan Institute of Virology played in the COVID-19 pandemic because they were “responsible” for sending tax dollars to that laboratory.

The Arkansas lawmaker argued those discussions were not a “distraction” during an appearance on Monday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Fox News Primetime.”

“[I]t’s not a distraction,” he said. “And there is no evidence to suggest it’s much more likely that this virus came from a bat which don’t live within hundreds of miles of Wuhan or that it came from some food market, which wasn’t even selling bats.”

“I’ve said from the very beginning of this pandemic we should obviously look to the laboratory where they were researching bat-based coronaviruses in the middle of a city where this outbreak originated,” Cotton continued.

“I think Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci don’t want to look at that lab because they were responsible for sending U.S. tax dollars to fund dangerous research to make coronaviruses more transmissible or more lethal there,” he added. “But the American people deserve answers, and China deserves to be held accountable for unleashing this plague on the world.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor