On Tuesday’s “Sean Hannity Show,” House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) reacted to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study finding that over $28 million in taxpayer dollars went to Chinese entities for research and development between 2015 and 2021 by stating that the amount of money going to China for R&D should be zero, and no tax dollars should go to “any type of partnership with the Chinese Communist Party for research and development or anything.”
Stefanik said, “There is no logic, and that number should be zero, Sean. That should be zero. China is not a partner. They are not an ally. They are not a friend. This is an adversary.” She added, “I am going to stand up to stop any dollars going towards any type of partnership with the Chinese Communist Party for research and development or anything.”
Stefanik also stated, “This is why Congressional oversight is so important. We have oversight over the agencies’ use of taxpayer dollars, and if it were not for this letter that I wrote with Ranking Member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)…we wrote this letter January of last year, so it almost took two years for the Government Accountability Office to get back to us. But $28 million of funds we know of that went through NIH, CDC, and DOD to Chinese Communist entities for research and development. Democrats have done nothing when it comes to oversight of our dollars. They’ve done nothing when it comes to getting to the bottom of the origins of COVID, which we know, all evidence points to coming from the lab in Wuhan.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett